Tai Chi Tournament - The New Loud Represents Milwaukee!

Hey everyone,

Shane from The New Loud here. I've been doing the martial art called 'Tai Chi' for a couple years now. Tai chi is an internal martial art which focuses on balance, center, and relaxation as opposed to brute force to conquer opponents. In January my teacher, Casey Payne and I traveled down to San Diego to compete in a martial arts tournament put together by ICMAC - New Loud Jessi went along for the ride. 

Despite never having been to a martial arts tournament before, I managed to place in the top of my weight class and come home with 2 Gold Medals and 1 Silver Medal.

Our school is called Black Horse Tai Chi and its located in Milwaukee, WI. We mostly focus on the 2 person tai chi exercise called 'Push Hands'.

Results of the competition can be found HERE. 

Here's a minute or so of BONUS footage from the trip!

HEY Where'd Yr Amps GO?! The Amp-less Live Setup

Hey Everyone,

So over the past 6 months I've been experimenting with using no amplifiers for guitar and keyboard at The New Loud Live shows. We've done 2 Milwaukee shows and 1 Chicago show so far.

Video explaining the pros and almost no cons of an amp-less live setup:

The hardware:

MacBook Pro i7 2.66 Ghz w/4 Gigs of RAM

Avid 003 Interface running Pro Tools 9

RME Fireface to handle extra outs/ins

Rane 6 Ch Headphone Amp

Etymotic wired in ear monitors - cheapest ones they make @$60/ea

I'm using almost all Pro Tools stock plugins except for Eleven LE which I use on the guitar. Though with PT 9, I'm running into some resource problems.

With this setup we can not only not bring any guitar/keys amps to clubs, we also get the added benefits of

-having what ever effect I want on anything at any time

-4 individual in ear mixes for the band that are consistent show to show venue to venue

-ability to multi-track record every show

-MIDI stage lighting sync

-'Guide vocals' for harmony parts pumped into specific performers in-ear mix

Future plans for the setup include using an iPad to remote mix the band from the audience.

At our 2nd Milwaukee show with the setup we ran into some funny technical difficulties with the setup. Here's a video explaining the situation:

Here's a flip cam version of 'Better This Way' filmed at The Cactus Club during the same show:

You can come and check it out again if you're in Milwaukee on Saturday January 15th, we're playing Mad Planet.