I've been a busy little bee these past few months, so apologies if you've been checking your inbox/RSS feeds every day for a blog post from me, I've been slacking on this front, so again, I'm sorry.

"What have I been up to?" I hear you say!

I've been working on my video skills alongside some awesome bands and singers from the greater NW area, and I have to tell you, the talent in this region is epic!

The equipment I've been using has included the versatile DJI Osmo, GoPro Hero 3, for some of the more static based shots giving it that multi-camera angle feels, as well as taking full advantage of my Zoom H4n Pro Handy Recorder, which has solved all my major sound recording issues. I've had to buy some additional connector cables to cater for the different sound mixers out there, but so far, it's been easy peasy.

The video work has also lead on to some more commercial projects, working with a huge retail chain, which involved me recording the footage, but also fully edit it within 24 hours, ready for first draft preview.

Connecting social media platforms in a syncronised way has been a bit of a challenge, especially when you're trying to do all this on a budget. Yes, there are platforms out there that will do this for you, but they tend to come with a hefty monthly subscription, but you can also do it with free systems if you're willing to put the effort into sorting out the triggers. Whilst going through some of these solutions, I found a really handy way of distributing the audio for my band recordings into iTunes. So now I'm a fully fledged podcaster. Feel free to check me out on there if you fancy some new music poured into your earholes. The last upload was from the lead singer of Foreign Owl and you can see the video recording below if you fancy it? Apologies for the audio on this one, because, even though I recorded it perfectly, I accidentally deleted it (cause I'm an idiot) and had to use the on-camera audio recording instead. I know! I'm only as good as my human imperfections. Lesson learned.

In the coming weeks, I hope to be recording a new session with Arbuckle and McCormick, who recently paired up to put their creative heads together having worked independently for some time. Their music is a mix of indie/folk with catchy riffs and smooth laidback lyrics. Needless to say, I'm already a fan, they're already on my channel if you want to check their first gig together out? On the YouTube front, I have now managed to secure a unique link, which basically means I can type out the channel name with letters, instead of a random string of numbers: www.youtube.com/OpenMicNights

So, if you know of any band/singers who are looking for some coverage, send them my way, I'm always happy to help out where I can.