christian renz // bassist

Seen in Shanghai (3)

2010-02-16T23:00:00Z

Unfortunately, air conditioning can not really able to replace “real” heatings (known as “wall heating” here, and virtually nobody has it). Even if Shanghai cannot compete with the German winter 2010 – it still can have down to 0°C here.

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Chinese household gadgets are a challenge of their own. There's a lot of software that can help you to translate Chinese words and sentences at the click of the mouse. What a pity such software doesn't exist for TVs, DVD players and all the other household items…

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In China, “thank you” has – according to my impression – a lot stronger meaning than in Germany. Especially when you are in the role of a customer, you do not explicitly have to say thank you all the time, except when the service was exceptional. If you still do it, the other person often seems surprised.

Coming to Germany, some Chinese are surprised how often you have to say “thank you” as a customer…

Century Park, Shanghai (Pudong)

2010-02-15T23:00:00Z

Here's a first attempt to pack our living room view into a panorama. I still have to work n the technique, but at least it provides a quick overview. Click on the picture to get the panorama as a large version, the second picture is the XXL version (10000x2000 pixels) that shows the panorama artifacts very well ;-). In the left third of the picture, you see the Shanghai World Financial Centre (just look for a bottle opener), to the right of it you see the famous Pearl Tower.

新年快乐！

2010-02-13T23:00:00Z

February 14th 2010 marks the beginning of the new year of the tiger for the Chinese. The fireworks here in Shanghai dwarfed everything I ever saw in Germany on New Year's Eve. Here's a few pictures that hopefully give an impression of what we saw around our flat. Click on the picture to start.

Mama | 18.02.10 7:16

Hey, das sind ja tolle Aussichten von Eurer Wohnung aus - also alles Liebe zum Jahr des Tigers ... wir sind in Gedanken oft bei Euch und überlegen uns, was ihr gerade so macht. Durch die Zeitverschiebung kommen wir immer wieder mal durcheinander und so klappt es bisher nicht mit dem Telefonieren. Wir wünschen Euch eine gute Zeit, bald ist ja wieder Wochenende, laßt mal was von Euch hören. Liebe Grüße Mama

Seen in Shanghai (2)

2010-01-25T07:00:00Z

It's very convenient to take your ATM card with you directly after signing up for an account.

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In intercultural research, ambiguity is a well-known phenomenon. It also can be experienced in real life. For example when discussing prices.

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You can get lunch in Shanghai for RMB 10. Or RMB 1000.

Jörn | 1.02.10 21:11

Hallo Christian,

hast du eigentlich meine Mail bekommen?

Jörn

February Album Writing Month 2010

2010-01-24T07:00:00Z

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." — Jack London

Sometimes you need external factors that force you to be creative. Maybe for you one such factor could be February Album Writing Month, which starts again February 1st. The goal is to produce 14 songs in 28 days. The focus is less on having a produced album, but rather to create new song material.

There's more information in the FAQ. In addition to that, starting February 1st there'll be a songwriting impulse every day posted on twitter.

I don't think I will be able to take part this year, but maybe it's something for you?

Seen in Shanghai (1)

2010-01-20T07:00:00Z

A subway train can fit many, many more people than you think. The same is true for elevators.

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It is a good Chinese custom to go for a short walk after lunch. And if it's too cold outside, a walk inside the building does the trick.

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Most scooters seem to have electric motors – even old and rickety ones.

Free Plugin Pearls (15): EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Free / NI Holiday Selection 2009

2010-01-01T07:00:00Z

To start the new year off well, I'll feature two plugin pearls today. However, deviating from my usual procedure I am going to recommend two instruments today that I haven't been able to try out myself yet.

In the last few months, a lot of discounts were offered on music software (and I have to admit I made use of a few offers as well). Many of these ended on 31.12. If you missed out on these offers, maybe the following two free Christmas downloads can help you get over the disappointment. Native Instruments offers the Holiday Selection 2009, a collection of KORE and KONTAKT sounds that can be used with the free KORE Player plugin. EastWest/Quantum Leap provide you with Symphonic Orchestra Free, a light version of their orchestra collection Symphonic Orchestra if you fill in a short questionnaire. The LogicUser forum has a list of the 20 instruments included and suggests switching off the convolution reverb effect to reduce the enormouse CPU load.

For both offers, I'm not quite sure how long they will be available, therefore you should act fast!

Download Native Instruments Holiday Selection for free (ca. 550 MB).

Download EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Free for, well, free (3 parts, together ca. 2 GB)

Auf Wiedersehen Stuttgart, 上海你好!

2009-12-29T07:00:00Z

(See you Stuttgart, hello Shanghai)

Starting from January 2010, I will be living and working in Shanghai, China. (One of the reasons why this blog was a bit more quite lately.) That means this blog will in future not only talk about music, but also my experiences in China. I hope you will enjoy it!

I am still available to do productions in Germany as well as collaborations via the Internet, so contact me if you are in need for a bassist.

Matthias Dietrich | 29.12.09 16:41

Da würde mich doch glatt interessieren, was du in China machen wirst und wie lange du bleibst :-). Auf jedenfall mal viel Erfolg und Alles Gute!

Matthias

Jonathan Schneider | 29.12.09 19:15

Hi,

wünsch euch alles Gute für die Zeit in China!

LG,

Jonathan

Michael Preidel | 31.12.09 11:05

Hört sich aufregend an. Alles Gute!

For Sale: Spector Legend 6 Classic Amberburst

2009-12-14T07:00:00Z

This Spector Legend 6 Classic Amberburst was my first six-string bass. I used it for the tour with Diversity Praiz! and for recording the The Gospel House album. But now, the time has come to reduce my bass collection a bit, therefore the Spector has to go. The bass is in mint condition. My asking price is €350. Interested? Get in touch!

Update: The bass is sold.

Tim | 14.12.09 9:47

Da könnte ich glatt schwach werden. Ich muss mal schaun ob ich meine Regierung überzeugen kann...

DrNI | 14.12.09 9:49

Oh du Fiesling, kommst mit derart Leckerei nachdem ich das Weihnachtsgeld schon für andere G.A.S.-Anfälle verwendet habe. Im Frühjahr hatte ich mal nen Ibanez 6-Saiter in den Flossen. Die 6 fand ich gut, das Ibanez weniger. Nunja, möge jemand anders daran gefallen finden und die Axt gut behandeln.

Christian | 15.12.09 1:13

Holla! Ich freue mich über das rege Interesse :-)

Marco Mendoza / Straitjacket @ BIX Stuttgart

2009-12-12T23:57:53Z

Highlights:
- God Bless The Child
- Teentown
- Living For The City

Marco Mendoza - Bass, Vocals;
Renato Neto - Keyboards
Joey Heredia - Drums

Signor Rossi (Viva La Felicità)

2009-12-07T07:00:00Z

This blog post is dedicated to two fellow musicians that have the misfortune of not knowing Signor Rossi (so far), a cartoon series by Bruno Bozzetto. Together with a number of other songs, the Italian composer Franco Godi wrote the wonderful title song „Viva La Felicità“ in 1976, and in my humble opinion, this track still would sound very fresh on a lounge floor today. I have to play this track during a gig sometime…

So here's the original Italian version. The soundtrack can be found at Amazon and iTunes.

(YouTube also has the song with German and English lyrics.)

tux | 7.12.09 14:18

hey
doch echt irgendwie ne coole nummer, und wo ich es sehe, die comic figur kenn ich sogar doch ;)
danke für den link.

gruß tux

Ein ♥ für Blogs #2: Einige aktuelle Blogempfehlungen

2009-11-27T07:00:00Z

This article talks about a series of blogs that are published in German only. Therefore, I didn't translate this article.

Vor einiger Zeit habe ich bereits ein paar Blogs empfohlen, die ich gerne lese. AUch wenn die zweite Runde von Ein ♥ für Blogs schon eine Weile vorbei ist - ich hänge mich aus aktuellem Anlass einfach trotzdem mal dran, weil mich in letzter Zeit ein paar Blogs begeistert haben. Was mich an Blogs generell fasziniert ist, wenn sie einen Einblick in eine Lebenswelt bieten, die ich so nicht kenne.

Mit seinem Bestatterweblog verfolgt Tom das Ziel, anderen die Scheu vor dem Thema Sterben und Tod zu nehmen. Weil er das außerdem mit sehr viel Humor tut, ist es kein Wunder, dass er innerhalb kurzer Zeit zu einem der bekanntesten (und unbekanntesten! - er bloggt unter Pseudonym) Blogger geworden ist. Tipp: Nicht nur auf den ersten Eindruck verlassen, im Archiv finden sich sehr viele lustige, bewegende, rührende Geschichten.

Wie es ist, als musikbegeisterter Mensch langsam aber sicher zu ertauben - davon schreibt not quite like beethoven seit April. Und das mit bemerkenswerter Offenheit. Erst vor kurzem hat er sich ein Cochlear-Implantat einsetzen lassen und beschreibt sowohl seinen Entscheidungsprozess dorthin wie auch die Nachwirkungen. Hier ein Startpunkt.

Judith und Sam Steiner sind in Asien unterwegs, und OrientImpress ist ihr Reisetagebuch. Interessante Begegnungen in Russland, China, der Mongolei, kurze Reisetipps, schöne Fotos und witzige Videodokus auf Schweizerdeutsch sind immer wieder gute Gründe, dort vorbeizuschauen.

Das Internet und die Medienwelt stehen so manchmal auf Kriegsfuß. Aber statt wie mancher Medienmogul den Untergang des Qualitätsjournalismus zu behaupten, analysiert Thomas Knüwer in seinem Blog Indiskretion Ehrensache lieber, welches Potenzial den Verlagsdinosauriern durch ihre Unflexibilität verlorengeht. Seid er nicht mehr für das Handelsblatt arbeitet, sondern als Freiberufler bloggt, scheint er mir noch etwas bissiger geworden zu sein. Tipp: Warum Verlage im Internet eben doch Geld verdienen.

renzwertig live: Panta Rei @ Bliss // Martin Pepper

2009-10-31T10:00:00Z

The coming two weekends will be very different in terms of musical style: Tonight at about 11pm, I'll be playing rock and covers with Panta Rei at Bliss, Stuttgart.

Next week (Nov 6-8th), I'll be playing three concerts with the songwriter Martin Pepper in Weinstadt, Winnenden and Ludwigsburg. More information about the concerts can be found on Martin Pepper's Agenda page.

Producing Music for the Theatre: The Meg and Mog Show

2009-10-31T06:00:00Z

This month, I've been working on a very interesting assignment: I arranged the music for the theatre production “The Meg and Mog Show” for the Players Theatre Singapore, a non-profit children's theatre. “The Meg and Mog Show“ is a well-known series of illustrated children's books that David Wood adapted for the stage.

The original arrangement was written for a pianist to accompany the show live. The theatre asked for playbacks with a more rich sound so that it won't sound too empty. At the same time, the character of children's music was to be retained, so that meant using a lot of funny sounds and effects.

I took some time to get into the music and then decided to keep the piano as main instrument and add to it using percussion, bass, marimba, vibraphones, brass etc. Given the tight schedule, it was a bit stressful, but it was loads of fun to arrange and mix the music.

Due to copyright reasons, I can't publish the playbacks hear, but parts of the original piano accompaniment can be heard on David Wood's website. The Player's Theatre currently has some more information on their webpage as well – if you happen to be in Singapore, you can quickly go and grab a ticket…

Tools for Musicians (2): Share files with Dropbox

2009-10-27T06:00:00Z

A recent blog entry over at Bassblogger reminded me that I've been wanting to finish my blog article about Dropbox for a while.

Musicians often need to share bigger files with others – cuts from live concerts, mixdowns, new song ideas or even whole Logic project files. I used to use my own server for this, but not everyone has that option, and it will cost you. Some people send these files as an e-mail (and add important information, so that you can't go and delete it)… not the best solution.

But since quite a while, Dropbox offers a very good solution for this problem: With a free account, you get 2 GB of online storage (and using this referral Link, it'll be 2.25 GB). To make use of all the space, you'll need to install the Dropbox software on your Mac, Windows or Linux machine that will then proceed to create a Dropbox folder. That's all! Now, all files that you put into this folder will be synchronised across the computers that you use Dropbox on (and you can use a web browser to access the files if you're on the road). You can also put files into a “public” folder and send anyone a link for them to download the file (whether they have Dropbox or not). On my machine, it looks like this:

One of the best features is that you can share folders for other Dropbox members. Everything put into the folder will appear on everyone's computer – just what you need for the band.

There's a number of websites that offer free storage, but the direct integration of Dropbox into the OS is something I haven't seen anywhere else yet. Therefore, I thoroughly recommend it.

Dropbox – 2.25 GB of free online storage

Tim | 28.10.09 11:33

Unglaublich, da klaut der mir doch schamlos meine Referals :)
--> https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTI2MTExMDU5

Ich nutze das mittlerweile auch gerne auf kurzzeit-Webspace. Nett wenn man mal eben was in nem Forum oder so zeigen will, es aber nicht für alle Ewigkeiten braucht. Eben in den Public-Ordner, zeigen und dann irgendwann wieder löschen! Schneller als jeder FTP-Server.