September 2000:
this webpage of project k was initially started in june 1999 with the intention to bring things which i do in my spare time (there's less and less of it) to the interested public. the main theme was music, and i provided compressed files of my songs on these pages. technology, however, moves fast and today nobody's really interested in some obscure compressed .wav format anymore! A remainder of the initial page will stay here as a "monument": It is the "bits and pieces"-section.
Many of the songs can now be listened to on my mp3.com
webpage in a much better quality; to do this, click this link: http://www.mp3.com/projectk. More information,
including full lyrics, are here.
Mp3 is a format that is sounding astonishingly good considering the fact that the
original files are compressed about 10x or even more.
June 1999:
project k
i cannot say when exactly project k came to life, since i am recording and playing music for almost the whole of my life. it really got real in 1994 with myself purchasing an 8-track recorder. project k is basically a one man band but it is open for contributions from other musicians: both on "west of the moon east of the sun" and "indifference" there is one track which features the appearance of a guest musician.
equipment
for those of you interested in the technical side of things, i've put together a list of the equipment i'm using or used to use:
for recording:
- WEST OF THE MOON EAST OF THE SUN and INDIFFERENCE were recorded with a Yamaha MT8X 8-track analog cassette recorder
- Y3K - SUNFLOWERS IN JANUARY was done with Logic Audio 3.0, i.e. harddisk recording.
equipment used (in random order):
- Korg Wavestation A/D
- E-mu ultra proteus
- Roland D-70
- Yamaha DX7 II FD
- Yamaha EX5
- Yamaha CS-5
- ReBirth RB338
- Zoom 4040 guitar effects processor
- Line6 POD guitar direct box
- Peavey stereo chorus 212 guitar amp
- Ibanez artist electric guitar
- Fender US Ultra Strat electric guitar
- Aria nylon guitar
- Event 20/20bas monitors
- balinese flute
- maui-xaphoon
- rainmaker
- a very old but still working westone bass guitar (courtesy of Kiwi!)
- Alesis D4 drum module (courtesy of Mr. Wismer!)
- E-mu Vintage Keys plus
- electrovoice n/d 357 microphone
- Godin A12 12string guitar
also used are a DAT-recorder and a windows95-computer
musical past
i am into music as long as i can remember: at the age of 7 i started playing recorder for about 2 years. this got a bit boring, therefore i switched to nylon guitar. i had a lot of different teachers and every one of them had a very different approach to teaching guitar. i started playing folk-songs, got on to playing with tabs instead of scores and ended with classical spanish guitar. i also took piano lessons for several years where i played the usual stuff and disliked most of it. aged 15, i got my first electric guitar (thanks, mom and dad!) and at 20, my first synthesizer (a DX7 IIFD)...
at the beginning of 1987 there was a bunch of young lads who decided to participate in a small band-contest. a band was founded, a name was given (GARAM) and three months were left to write and rehearse songs. the gig was intended to last for about half an hour. we managed to get together 5 songs and most surprisingly that night, on march 21st 1987 we ranked #1 in the contest. young as we were (19/20 years) we thought we've got it all made: stardom, money, women etc....
it was a good night, and later we played on several occasions more than just 5 songs. after some breaks and some changes of bass players we made a real demo tape in a studio in 1992. however, shortly after that the band broke up.
every now and then me and Kiwi, under the name of "Horsenail and Key", used to release tapes for friends of ours with own songs on them; the last being "never fade out" in 1994, which we did especially for the wedding of our former guitar player and his wive.
in 1993 i joined "The Heavenly Creation", a 70's kind of funk band, as keyboardist. at about the same time i also joined "Insert Coin" as keyboard player, a folk-rock type of band. The Heavenly Creation did some gigs but were never thought to be permanent, and Insert Coin dissolved themselves in late 1995, too.
This is where project k came in definitely!
These days i am regularly jammin' with friends from the old bands to have fun and to gather possible ideas for songs. The closing section of "Leaving" from the Indifference album is an example of such an idea.