Stuart McIlreavy’s Blog

In desperate need of sun, fresh air and exercise, I cut a deal with a Phuket Muay Thai Camp.

SEO for a place to stay and muay Thai training.

So I caught the night train to Surat Thani, and then bussed it to Phuket.

In Phuket I met Aaron Fisher who was running the camp.
Training with a cage fighter and kick boxing champion was intense. By far the best exercise I’ve ever done. Thought the heart was going to pack it in at one stage.

The other guys at the camp were all much harder…..ex military….sports men…pikeys…….all bearing tattoos….
I avoided eye contact…….

Running kilometers at 7am, jump rope, push ups, bag work, push ups, sit ups….all supposedly good for the health.

I asked one of the trainers if she saw champion potential in me?

She thought for a second…….”No”…….WTF?

Hoping to make it back some time.

Some Video Below.

Aaron Fisher Highlight Reel

Aaron Fisher 7 Second Knockout

This mix is kind of experimental.

Contains heaps of clicks and pops and distortions. Just think of it as character. Like in the old days.

All Vocals: Joan Chapasuka
All Guitars: Stuart McIlreavy
All clicks, pops, distortions™: Stuart Mcilreavy

This is a clip from the DJ Qbert workshop at SAE Bangkok. I had no idea who DJ Qbert was to be honest. Living under a rock.

But people assured me he was well known. Apparently so.

Here’s the wiki.

And here’s the Vid:
Get the Flash Player to see this player.

This You Tube Vid is also worth checking out, Dj Qbert Drumming

This is the final track I produced for the 24 Track Assignment @ SAE Bangkok.

It is an Ani Difranco cover (Again).

My love for Ani Difranco tunes says nothing about my sexuality. There is nothing wrong with getting in touch with your inner angry bi-sexual female side.

Written: Ani Difranco
Vocals: Joan Chapasuka
Drums: Aljul Prado
Guitar / Bass: Stuart McIlreavy

Some more credits….

Standout Software.
Native Instruments Guitar Rig did a great job giving the bass an amped sound after recording line in.

Standout Hardware.
Hmm….In the SAE Bangkok studio…….Maybe the Lexicon PCM91. Nice verb.

Standout Plugin:
Loved the entire PSP Mix Pack, particularly PSP MixSaturator…adding something a little special to the final product.

For the past few month I’ve been living in a place I lovingly referred to as “The Crack Den”. My apartment on Petchaburi soi 36 oozed Crack Den ambiance. The decor screamed Crack Den. I moved in to the Crack Den a few months back because it was the only place I could find close to my school after I was evicted from my previous lodgings.

My Neighbors consisted of Lady Boys, Russian prostitutes, their pimps, Sub Saharan Africans, Bangladeshis and the occasional Colombian. Not trying to put people in boxes, everyone was lovely.

The Crack Den was an eventful place.

There was the time that

- The guy knocked on my door brandishing an Iron bar, seeking to beat the crap out of someone…..
Fortunately not me.

- I went down stairs to complain about the plumbing, only to find my land lord was packing a loaded Smith and Wesson
automatic pistol. The plumbing can wait.

- The Lady Boy exposed her self to me as i was returning home from school, then opened the front door for me, saying “Welcome home sir”

Good times…

This week….leaving the crack den. Hoping not to get mugged in my few remaining days.

Studying at SAE I’ve had a lot of chances to use both Logic & Pro Tools in a studio environment.
It may be jumping the gun formulating opinions on the matter before using Pro Tools 7.4

From my experience, interacting with Pro Tools on any level, always winds up being an interaction of inconvenience.
As Pro Tools is proprietary to the core, if there is any dynamic at all in your studio environment, Pro Tools will always leave you disappointed. Around every corner, Digi Design seem to erect a barrier that interrupts your work flow. Whether it be a licensing issue, a interlock driver, a software update issue…the list is endless. Pro-Tools is bound to fail you at some stage.

And Logic? Logic 8 is a dream straight out of the box. It’s the corner stone of the DAW you always dreamed you had. It’s loaded with tools that all seem to sound great. Even the no frills Apple compressors do exactly what you expect them to do. And the fact that it comes with no hardware restrictions leaves you completely open to choose from the plethora of audio interfaces that are flooding the market.

It is true that Pro-Tools has industry pedigree. But my crystal balls see them rapidly going the way 3dFX did.

This is a track I produced for a Midi assignment at The School of Audio Engineering in Bangkok. Started off on a midi workstation using Cubse, a Korg Karma and Roland JV2080. Got off the old school midi gear as quickly as possible and jumped in to Logic Express.

P.S, I take no responsibility for the content of the vocal samples. I have no idea what they are saying.

Here are two more cover tracks from a rehearsal session at

SAE Bangkok
All Vocals: Joan Chapasuka
All Guitar: Stuart McILreavy

This is my 16 track assignment recordeded on the 16 track pro-tools studio at SAE Bangkok.

Written by Sonia Serin
Vocals: Joan Chapasuka
Drums: Mr Neto.
Lead Guitar Written by Stuart Mcilreavy
Guitar: Stuart McIlreavy
Bass Guitar: Stuart McIlreavy
Creative Support & Direction: James Alexy Cool

This track comes from a first rehearsal session of an acoustic track by Ani.
We did a few practice runs and then threw a rode condenser mic right in between us for this take.
Afterwards I used a plug-in-mastering preset from Izotope Ozone.

Vocals - Jo
Guitar - Stuart