Blogging was suspended over the last couple few weeks as I struggled to finish up mixing and mastering while simeltaneously getting through the last run of the Picasso exhinit at work. Work brought about 7-day work weeks through January thanks to extended hours atthe museum and my restuarant and inbetween, I was doing all I could to get songs ready for mastering on the 25th. Throughout the month, Johnny and I mixed at Avast Studios and then worked with Conrad Uno to do furthur mixing and editing before going to master with Ed at RFI on the 25th. hen I did go in, there was still editing to be done to the mixes and no way all 16 songs I brought in to master could be done in a day. Ed said he'd rather take his time over the next couple weeks to work on the songs, especially since they jump all around stylistically and dynamically to not be a straightforward mastering job.
So I dropped my songs off and felt a release and weight lfited from not having any way to work on these recordings any furthur for the time being. The restauarant and museum closed for furlough on the 30th and I flew out that night to spent a week and a half in Kensoha, where I'm writing this blog.
Yesterday was the Super Bowl and I'm hard-pressed to say I was to excited about it one way or the other. This year, I paid attention even less than I usually do to football with everything going on right now. That said it was a fun game to watch though I was careful not to take too much homestate pride in the win as to not feel like a complete carpetbagger. I was actually napping during the Blac-Eyed Peas performance to catch up on some sleep before the second-half. When I read reviews later saying how atrotious they were I had to check it out for myself. Lo and behold, the rumors are true.
Should be receiving the first draft of the master from Ed anyday now, which I'll make adjustmenst too then go back and tweak with him next week in Seattle. The last few days, I've been playing some of the unmastered mixes for friends and family after not heari8ng them myself for a couple weeks and I gotta say, I didn't want to crawl under the kitchen table and start recording all over again, so that's good.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
In and Out
The last week or so, I've developed a sleeping pattern than involves going to bed aound 4:30 or 5 in the morning, waking up at 9 for work then coming home at 5 or 6 and crashing for a couple hours before I get up again and so the main chunk of my day then goes from about 8 to 4. This pattern started developing when I got back from Massachusetts, I blame the time difference and the jet lag. But when I found I couldn't shake the pattern after a few days, I realized my body and mind were telling me I had to be awake during those solitary night hours to work not only on editing mixes for the mastering coming up, but also to work on new songs.
I came back from Christmas vacation with a clear focus in regards of how to further develop my new material but resigned myself to having to wait until after mixing and mastering the new albums throughout January. I knew the mixing and mastering alone would require concentration that would be hard to achieve since this month at work is unusually brutal (working my 7th straight day tomorrow) but I've been finding myself more stressed out and frustrated than usual without being able to pinpoint why until I started casually working on the new stuff during the late late hours and realized that it may just be necessary to keep a mental balance by working on both the writing of newere songs and the mastering of the older.
As I comb over the recordings for their final framings, I find myself more self-aware of how the sequences hold up both individually and also in the context of my whole 8-albums-of-8-songs concept. I'm in the thick of knowing exactly what story I want to tell and what chapter needs to be told next. Putting together a collection of songs in the writing stage means much rewriting and discarding of songs, finding the perfect combination to fulfill all the desired standards one collection of songs should have. Much was written this year about Bruce Springsteen in the wake of his release of songs that were discarded from Darkness on the Edge of Town 30 years ago and WHY they were discarded, because even though some of the songs were better in a one-on-one comparison to certain songs on the album, a song in question chosen for the album fit the theme and sequencing of the album better. All for the greater good and so forth. Bruce has been one of my biggest heroes since high school and I learned early on back then going through all the bootleg cassettes I could get my hands on of the importance being able to discard songs in the name of trying to find a cohesive statement that works as a piece of art and as a representation of who you are when you write and put that album together.
I know everyone doesn't share these grand sweeping notions for what an album should be but that's how I do it and why I'm doing this big insane project that's taking years and is almost impossible to explain during the long completion process; I do it because I believe songs when put together in the right context have the potential to tell a bigger story and reveal larger truths than individual songs by themselves can. Over the last year, I've squeezed in bursts of time to try to go forward on songs that would represent my thinking and personal struggles over the past couple years, not in the lyrics specifically but in the emotional peripherals inherent in the eventual combination of songs to be presented together. I have a pretty good sequence of 8 songs now and I've gained confidence over the last week while working on them that they thus far hit all the marks concerning what they need to contain. And it helps to have two separate sleeping allotments over the course of the day, because then there is more time spent emerging from or descending into sleep, and inhabiting the state of mind that drifts between the conscious and the unconscious.
I came back from Christmas vacation with a clear focus in regards of how to further develop my new material but resigned myself to having to wait until after mixing and mastering the new albums throughout January. I knew the mixing and mastering alone would require concentration that would be hard to achieve since this month at work is unusually brutal (working my 7th straight day tomorrow) but I've been finding myself more stressed out and frustrated than usual without being able to pinpoint why until I started casually working on the new stuff during the late late hours and realized that it may just be necessary to keep a mental balance by working on both the writing of newere songs and the mastering of the older.
As I comb over the recordings for their final framings, I find myself more self-aware of how the sequences hold up both individually and also in the context of my whole 8-albums-of-8-songs concept. I'm in the thick of knowing exactly what story I want to tell and what chapter needs to be told next. Putting together a collection of songs in the writing stage means much rewriting and discarding of songs, finding the perfect combination to fulfill all the desired standards one collection of songs should have. Much was written this year about Bruce Springsteen in the wake of his release of songs that were discarded from Darkness on the Edge of Town 30 years ago and WHY they were discarded, because even though some of the songs were better in a one-on-one comparison to certain songs on the album, a song in question chosen for the album fit the theme and sequencing of the album better. All for the greater good and so forth. Bruce has been one of my biggest heroes since high school and I learned early on back then going through all the bootleg cassettes I could get my hands on of the importance being able to discard songs in the name of trying to find a cohesive statement that works as a piece of art and as a representation of who you are when you write and put that album together.
I know everyone doesn't share these grand sweeping notions for what an album should be but that's how I do it and why I'm doing this big insane project that's taking years and is almost impossible to explain during the long completion process; I do it because I believe songs when put together in the right context have the potential to tell a bigger story and reveal larger truths than individual songs by themselves can. Over the last year, I've squeezed in bursts of time to try to go forward on songs that would represent my thinking and personal struggles over the past couple years, not in the lyrics specifically but in the emotional peripherals inherent in the eventual combination of songs to be presented together. I have a pretty good sequence of 8 songs now and I've gained confidence over the last week while working on them that they thus far hit all the marks concerning what they need to contain. And it helps to have two separate sleeping allotments over the course of the day, because then there is more time spent emerging from or descending into sleep, and inhabiting the state of mind that drifts between the conscious and the unconscious.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Be Cool
"So what do you want this to sound like?"
Johnny will ask the above question before spending 3 or 4 hours getting acquainted with the song and all it's individual instrumentation and production before, somewhere along the way, starting to formulate his own vision of the song in regards to the technology available in the studio to help mix said song. Mixing, of course, being the process where the engineer hired to mix sets the volume levels of the individual instruments and apply different effects when appropriate. In other words, his job is to make me (and the band) sound cool.
These days, most musicians mix on Pro-Tools or an equivalent software at their home studio, which allows for constant tweaking of the adjustments required for a good mix of a recording. One can look at this development two ways: it's good in that you can keep adjusting until you reach the ideal version of the song you hear in your head OR you keep second-guessing and purging any sense spontaneity. I go the old school-route in regards to recording and mixing, doing both almost exclusively in professional studios. This means that for both the recording and mixing stages of the project, I have windows of time to work in, dictated mostly by how much money I have to spent to do either. Judging by the long amount of time it takes me to finish an album, time isn't the biggest consideration in finishing, I just want to work at it till it sounds cool and I've done the best I could with what I have to work with. If I run out of money and the recording or mixing isn't up to standard, I'll wait a few months and earn more money to go back in the studio.
Even with that noble philosophy, compromises have to be made all the time, and a decision an engineer makes while recording or mixing can completely alter the direction of the production and you won't realize until it's too late. In those case, you have to make further decisions on the song that incorporates all the twist and turns that have come before, as you try to make it to the original destination via slightly (or sometimes completely) different route.
Johnny and I were in Avast on Sunday and Monday doing the last 4 mixes for the new albums and it went great, probably the smoothest mixing I've ever done and arguably the best sounding mixes I've ever been bestowed with. I was excited to go to Avast for the plate reverb they have. The mixing process with Johnny is, I'll give him notes on what I have it mind for the song than leave him to work for 3 or 4 hours. I come back and he plays me what he's come up with. I take notes while listening and then we start developing the mix in subsequent incarnations over the next couple hours to try and closer match how I hear the song in my head as opposed to how he initially interpreted it. But a great thing about these last mixes is I didn't have to do a lot of adjusting to his original mix. Usually, we'll mix nine or ten different version of the song to choose between for the final album, but in this case we only ended up doing 3 or 4 of the two of the songs because they were dead of on the money. The third song was the one time where I was initially disappointed while listening to the first mix but during tweaking, I realized with three easy adjustments, his mix was still there with the couple of crucial elements restored to make a collaborative vision of the mix.
Listening to mixes done this way in the days following the session is more enjoyable than those mixing sessions slaved over in person because you're listening not just to yourself but someone else's craft of FRAMING yourself, so the potential narcissism (or most of it anyway) takes a backseat in the name of admiring a fellow collaborator's work.
But while I'm very happy with the turn-out, there is still much work to do before next week, involving choosing which mixes to use for the final album and editing those with Conrad and Johnny next week. Hence, the lack of sleep mentioned in the last blog.
Johnny will ask the above question before spending 3 or 4 hours getting acquainted with the song and all it's individual instrumentation and production before, somewhere along the way, starting to formulate his own vision of the song in regards to the technology available in the studio to help mix said song. Mixing, of course, being the process where the engineer hired to mix sets the volume levels of the individual instruments and apply different effects when appropriate. In other words, his job is to make me (and the band) sound cool.
These days, most musicians mix on Pro-Tools or an equivalent software at their home studio, which allows for constant tweaking of the adjustments required for a good mix of a recording. One can look at this development two ways: it's good in that you can keep adjusting until you reach the ideal version of the song you hear in your head OR you keep second-guessing and purging any sense spontaneity. I go the old school-route in regards to recording and mixing, doing both almost exclusively in professional studios. This means that for both the recording and mixing stages of the project, I have windows of time to work in, dictated mostly by how much money I have to spent to do either. Judging by the long amount of time it takes me to finish an album, time isn't the biggest consideration in finishing, I just want to work at it till it sounds cool and I've done the best I could with what I have to work with. If I run out of money and the recording or mixing isn't up to standard, I'll wait a few months and earn more money to go back in the studio.
Even with that noble philosophy, compromises have to be made all the time, and a decision an engineer makes while recording or mixing can completely alter the direction of the production and you won't realize until it's too late. In those case, you have to make further decisions on the song that incorporates all the twist and turns that have come before, as you try to make it to the original destination via slightly (or sometimes completely) different route.
Johnny and I were in Avast on Sunday and Monday doing the last 4 mixes for the new albums and it went great, probably the smoothest mixing I've ever done and arguably the best sounding mixes I've ever been bestowed with. I was excited to go to Avast for the plate reverb they have. The mixing process with Johnny is, I'll give him notes on what I have it mind for the song than leave him to work for 3 or 4 hours. I come back and he plays me what he's come up with. I take notes while listening and then we start developing the mix in subsequent incarnations over the next couple hours to try and closer match how I hear the song in my head as opposed to how he initially interpreted it. But a great thing about these last mixes is I didn't have to do a lot of adjusting to his original mix. Usually, we'll mix nine or ten different version of the song to choose between for the final album, but in this case we only ended up doing 3 or 4 of the two of the songs because they were dead of on the money. The third song was the one time where I was initially disappointed while listening to the first mix but during tweaking, I realized with three easy adjustments, his mix was still there with the couple of crucial elements restored to make a collaborative vision of the mix.
Listening to mixes done this way in the days following the session is more enjoyable than those mixing sessions slaved over in person because you're listening not just to yourself but someone else's craft of FRAMING yourself, so the potential narcissism (or most of it anyway) takes a backseat in the name of admiring a fellow collaborator's work.
But while I'm very happy with the turn-out, there is still much work to do before next week, involving choosing which mixes to use for the final album and editing those with Conrad and Johnny next week. Hence, the lack of sleep mentioned in the last blog.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Gotta Get Right
Lunch shifts. Unless you're the opener and have to show up at 10, you get to the restaurant at 10:20 (if the bus isn't late, more on that later), punch-in by 10:30 and work a half-hour finish the set-up that the opener started by the time the place opens at 10:45. Somewhere in there is "stand-up," a in which the on-shift manager goes over with the staff events of the day and specials. During most of the year, the first hour of the shift from 11-12 is fairly slow and by 12 or 12:15 you start to be in the thick of the rush, which doesn't start letting up til 2 or so. You keep taking tables til 3, when lunch is over and happy hour begins with new servers coming on the floor to relieve you and you pray to God you don't get sat at 2:54 and have to stay another half-hour at least just for that table (actually, most people that come in late for lunch don't have to go back to work and take their time lounging around). And that's the lunch shift.
Sometimes I'm ashamed to describe my job to people who have to spend 8 hours a day in offices, but I'm getting better about that. I find most people that work in offices brag about hours or even whole days of doing nothing but surfing the web and/pr streaming movies on Netflix. Anyone who's worked a halfway busy restaurant or bar knows that you're lucky if you can get 30 seconds to piss when you need to. Back when i smoked and worked with a lot of people that smoked, I learned to be the master of the 45-second cigarette, suck baby suck. In fact, I learned to smoke from WORKING in restaurants at my first job waiting tables when I was 20. I was the only guy on an almost all-female waitstaff and smoking was a convenient way to try and get to know some of these girls, though like many a beginning smoker, it was pointed out to me that I wasn't inhaling at first.
But I digress. When it's not busy at my restaurant, a lunch shift constitutes an hour-and-a-half to two hours of non-stop work, with a couple hours before and an after of more leisurely paced activity and "sidework" (i.e. the stocking of supplies and condiments needed throughout the shift). Some servers socialize more than others. Bussers and hosts in particular will milk the clock as much as possible even when they're not on the floor since most of their income comes from hourly wage instead of tips, the reverse of it works for a server or bartender. I tend to keep to myself throughout most shifts, even when it's slow, for two reasons: a) I have a lot on my mind, especially in regards to what is usually written about on this blog and tend to gravitate in my downtime towards what I'm working on off-hours, and b) I'd usually rather bust out the sidework rather than stand around talking to get the hell out of there as fast as I can. Take napkins. You can never have enough folded napkins to reset the restaurant with, and you have to have a certain amount folded before you leave for the day. I start folding napkins right when I come in and squeeze in bursts or 10 here and there throughout the shift so when my last table leaves, I can just clean-up, polish some silverware, reset some tables and go. It's more common to get a stack of napkins at the end of your shift and fold for a twenty minutes or so but again, any minute I'm spending there is a minute I can be working on songs or writing blogs like this one. Getting out is sometimes tough. You can have finished your last table two hours ago and have been doing sidework non-stop for two hours and be just about to walk out the door, when a manager who hasn't seen you do said sidework will ask you to help run food for the happy hour rush or set some more tables. Sometimes you just gotta sneak out knowing full well you did your part and won't be missed.
Right now it's busier than it's ever been at the restaurant since I've started working there 3 years ago, though not the busiest restaurant I've worked at. The sales we ring at lunch now and the rush that lasts from when we open at 11 to about 2L30 or 3 now, feels more in line for a moderately-successful restaurant, but since we're in effect part of the Seattle Art Museum, we live or die by what exhibits are in the museum. Having a Picasso exhibit is the equivalent to those oldies stations that play hour-long Beatles blocks on Sunday morning, closest thing to a sure thing you'll get.
I never expect to get much sympathy about how draining it is to work these shifts, in which you exert all mental and physical capabilities in the service of food and beverage, so I don't bring it up a lot, especially to those with full time jobs working overtime. And piling on trying to play, write and record music as a collective burden is tough to get people to relate to. Ultimately, I DO only have to work a few hours everyday but at a time like now, when I'm working hours a day to try and finalize the mixes for mastering in a couple weeks and completion of this huge project, I find myself turning in at 4:30 and getting back up at 8:30. In between, gotta run, gotta see the girlfriend, gotta relax a little(usually via a couple episodes of whatever TV show I'm going through on DVD at the time), practice, do peripheral tasks like artwork, work on finding a photographer, website, and so on and on and on.
Sometimes it seems like all too much but when I lie awake at 4:30 thinking about it, I realize again, as I've been writing about I just want to be done, but be done right.
Sometimes I'm ashamed to describe my job to people who have to spend 8 hours a day in offices, but I'm getting better about that. I find most people that work in offices brag about hours or even whole days of doing nothing but surfing the web and/pr streaming movies on Netflix. Anyone who's worked a halfway busy restaurant or bar knows that you're lucky if you can get 30 seconds to piss when you need to. Back when i smoked and worked with a lot of people that smoked, I learned to be the master of the 45-second cigarette, suck baby suck. In fact, I learned to smoke from WORKING in restaurants at my first job waiting tables when I was 20. I was the only guy on an almost all-female waitstaff and smoking was a convenient way to try and get to know some of these girls, though like many a beginning smoker, it was pointed out to me that I wasn't inhaling at first.
But I digress. When it's not busy at my restaurant, a lunch shift constitutes an hour-and-a-half to two hours of non-stop work, with a couple hours before and an after of more leisurely paced activity and "sidework" (i.e. the stocking of supplies and condiments needed throughout the shift). Some servers socialize more than others. Bussers and hosts in particular will milk the clock as much as possible even when they're not on the floor since most of their income comes from hourly wage instead of tips, the reverse of it works for a server or bartender. I tend to keep to myself throughout most shifts, even when it's slow, for two reasons: a) I have a lot on my mind, especially in regards to what is usually written about on this blog and tend to gravitate in my downtime towards what I'm working on off-hours, and b) I'd usually rather bust out the sidework rather than stand around talking to get the hell out of there as fast as I can. Take napkins. You can never have enough folded napkins to reset the restaurant with, and you have to have a certain amount folded before you leave for the day. I start folding napkins right when I come in and squeeze in bursts or 10 here and there throughout the shift so when my last table leaves, I can just clean-up, polish some silverware, reset some tables and go. It's more common to get a stack of napkins at the end of your shift and fold for a twenty minutes or so but again, any minute I'm spending there is a minute I can be working on songs or writing blogs like this one. Getting out is sometimes tough. You can have finished your last table two hours ago and have been doing sidework non-stop for two hours and be just about to walk out the door, when a manager who hasn't seen you do said sidework will ask you to help run food for the happy hour rush or set some more tables. Sometimes you just gotta sneak out knowing full well you did your part and won't be missed.
Right now it's busier than it's ever been at the restaurant since I've started working there 3 years ago, though not the busiest restaurant I've worked at. The sales we ring at lunch now and the rush that lasts from when we open at 11 to about 2L30 or 3 now, feels more in line for a moderately-successful restaurant, but since we're in effect part of the Seattle Art Museum, we live or die by what exhibits are in the museum. Having a Picasso exhibit is the equivalent to those oldies stations that play hour-long Beatles blocks on Sunday morning, closest thing to a sure thing you'll get.
I never expect to get much sympathy about how draining it is to work these shifts, in which you exert all mental and physical capabilities in the service of food and beverage, so I don't bring it up a lot, especially to those with full time jobs working overtime. And piling on trying to play, write and record music as a collective burden is tough to get people to relate to. Ultimately, I DO only have to work a few hours everyday but at a time like now, when I'm working hours a day to try and finalize the mixes for mastering in a couple weeks and completion of this huge project, I find myself turning in at 4:30 and getting back up at 8:30. In between, gotta run, gotta see the girlfriend, gotta relax a little(usually via a couple episodes of whatever TV show I'm going through on DVD at the time), practice, do peripheral tasks like artwork, work on finding a photographer, website, and so on and on and on.
Sometimes it seems like all too much but when I lie awake at 4:30 thinking about it, I realize again, as I've been writing about I just want to be done, but be done right.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Late in the Evening
It's late, again. Since I got back from the East Coast, my sleeping pattern has been more screwed up than usual. I find myself staying up til 4, getting up at 8 (have to for work) than taking a long nap later in the day. The shifts have been killer at the restaurant this week, with a non-stop onslaught of patrons who come to the museum to check out the Picasso exhibit while on holiday then come in the restaurant to complain about the menu. The ratio of newbies vs. regulars is the restaurant therefore completely goes in favor of the newbies, which means every table needs a comprehensive guiding through some of the menu's more confusing aspects. I might be only working 4 to 5 hours a day but it's full section from beginning to end. And this week with sleeping pattern thrown off, I sleepwalk through first few tables until I'm too busy to be tired then bust my ass til end of shift after which I board bus and proceed to fall asleep for a few seconds before waking up abruptly four or five times on the way home.
It's a new year, but I'm still finishing off the old one this month, or rather the last couple years. I looked at a journal from Jan/Feb of '09 and there I am, in the thick of writing the songs I'm finishing recording now. That's just the way that it goes but until this month, I haven't been quite as eager to finish as I am now. I've worked on and off over the past year, mainly last summer, on a group of new songs that are all starting to coalesce individually. But instead of working on them tonight, I had to prep for mixing tomorrow with Johnny. Writing songs and getting them through each stage towards completion helps me be more aware of surroundings on a day-to-day basis and offers throughout the process clues to what Prince would say is "this thing we call life." Mixing is, on a creative level, doing the grunt work for a former version of yourself. Sometimes you get to collaborate with that version and late in the game add a new twist to the proceedings but more often then not, you're minding the store and making sure the songs come out of the process unscathed. That said, it's extremely gratifying to hear end results after all the work but at this point I wish there was more time to write. But work at the restaurant for now will continue to be intense for the next couple weeks as we're open 7 days a week instead of the usual 5 to accommodate the bum rush for the end of the Picasso exhibit, meaning even less free and writing time than usual, since I'll be cramming mixing throughout the month in there as well.
Well, almost 3 again. Let the alarm setting commence.
It's a new year, but I'm still finishing off the old one this month, or rather the last couple years. I looked at a journal from Jan/Feb of '09 and there I am, in the thick of writing the songs I'm finishing recording now. That's just the way that it goes but until this month, I haven't been quite as eager to finish as I am now. I've worked on and off over the past year, mainly last summer, on a group of new songs that are all starting to coalesce individually. But instead of working on them tonight, I had to prep for mixing tomorrow with Johnny. Writing songs and getting them through each stage towards completion helps me be more aware of surroundings on a day-to-day basis and offers throughout the process clues to what Prince would say is "this thing we call life." Mixing is, on a creative level, doing the grunt work for a former version of yourself. Sometimes you get to collaborate with that version and late in the game add a new twist to the proceedings but more often then not, you're minding the store and making sure the songs come out of the process unscathed. That said, it's extremely gratifying to hear end results after all the work but at this point I wish there was more time to write. But work at the restaurant for now will continue to be intense for the next couple weeks as we're open 7 days a week instead of the usual 5 to accommodate the bum rush for the end of the Picasso exhibit, meaning even less free and writing time than usual, since I'll be cramming mixing throughout the month in there as well.
Well, almost 3 again. Let the alarm setting commence.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The In-betweens
Wrapping paper is and cardboard mailing boxes (most from Amazon) are still strung around my room, needing to be picked up. Got back from Christmas on the East Coast in midst of the blizzard on Monday, by some miracle my flight wasn't canceled even though my girlfriend's and her brother's were. Must be cause I had to transfer in Phoenix instead of New York.
Last mixing session for the two albums (more on that later) is this weekend, expanded from one day to a day and a half from Sunday night through Monday. Did a preliminary session with Johnny a week or so ago. I decided to take an extra half day to remix New Duds for the Captain, ran out of time mixing it at Egg last month and an overall philosophy was missing on the track anyway. Trying a bizarre idea that actually thus far seems to work, I took a sample of Kate singing on "Train Wreck," flipped it backwards ala Beatles (like John at the end of "Rain") and that became the new hook, which makes for a powerful effect and display of song and album's idea of portraying the tenuous grasp emotion can have on memory (or vice versa).
All year I've been working on 16 songs, knowing it was two distinct groupings of 8 but not sure whether to try and pass them off as one on one CD or release or to try and press them separate and pass them out at the same time or release one first than another a few months later. I'm now leaning towards the last option, so I'd press up and pass out The Sugar Nile as an EP with little fanfare and use it as a first wave to promote The Water balloon album a few months later. Still ironing out exact details, but I'll be mastering both at the end of January.
In the meantime, I've finished remastering the first couple 8-song sequences of my project. I'm proud of the way these sound now, a definite improvement in sound quality from the first masterings and the new editorial choices regarding length or alternate mixes feel right and earned, especially on The Youngest Sister. I'm working on artwork for the new stuff plus this, it should all be ready for unveiling at the same time.
That's all for now, had some musings to export but those will wait for a non-business orientated blog, maybe soon.
Last mixing session for the two albums (more on that later) is this weekend, expanded from one day to a day and a half from Sunday night through Monday. Did a preliminary session with Johnny a week or so ago. I decided to take an extra half day to remix New Duds for the Captain, ran out of time mixing it at Egg last month and an overall philosophy was missing on the track anyway. Trying a bizarre idea that actually thus far seems to work, I took a sample of Kate singing on "Train Wreck," flipped it backwards ala Beatles (like John at the end of "Rain") and that became the new hook, which makes for a powerful effect and display of song and album's idea of portraying the tenuous grasp emotion can have on memory (or vice versa).
All year I've been working on 16 songs, knowing it was two distinct groupings of 8 but not sure whether to try and pass them off as one on one CD or release or to try and press them separate and pass them out at the same time or release one first than another a few months later. I'm now leaning towards the last option, so I'd press up and pass out The Sugar Nile as an EP with little fanfare and use it as a first wave to promote The Water balloon album a few months later. Still ironing out exact details, but I'll be mastering both at the end of January.
In the meantime, I've finished remastering the first couple 8-song sequences of my project. I'm proud of the way these sound now, a definite improvement in sound quality from the first masterings and the new editorial choices regarding length or alternate mixes feel right and earned, especially on The Youngest Sister. I'm working on artwork for the new stuff plus this, it should all be ready for unveiling at the same time.
That's all for now, had some musings to export but those will wait for a non-business orientated blog, maybe soon.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Raindrops
...and almost back now to pseudo-full functionality, albeit with still charred throat and phlegm-filled sinuses (sorry). However, all mental capabilities have been temporarily routed to serve Finishing Christmas Shopping, so not a lot of work done today, though I did do one fairly extensive lyric sketch I'm looking forward to working on a bit in the coming days. Also seem to have left my mobile sketchbook in my locker at work, said sketchbook had a few lyric brainstorms I was hoping to get through but not until Wednesday now, sigh...oh well, plenty more to do. Currently downloading some mp3's my Dad just sent me tonight of some recordings he made in his early twenties, reportedly versions of "Both Sides Now" and "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head," excited to hear these ("Raindrops" will be a good song to hear after the flood'filled weekend Seattle just had)
Work had a less overall annoying clientle than brunch last week, a bit slower too. By the end of the shift, I was drained from still being under the weather and going to bed a tad late last night after getting home late from the Sat night shift. Got two days off now to do what i will with my time without having to lie in bed and rest and get better, as nice as that was to do.
Work had a less overall annoying clientle than brunch last week, a bit slower too. By the end of the shift, I was drained from still being under the weather and going to bed a tad late last night after getting home late from the Sat night shift. Got two days off now to do what i will with my time without having to lie in bed and rest and get better, as nice as that was to do.
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