Another Birthday

It's been another year around the globe, and it's what most people consider one of the most significant birthday numbers post 21.  I won't say the actual number...I think you can guess.  Where DOES the time go?  I feel like it was just a couple of years ago that I was turning 30 and...well...

My mixing excursion is coming along but I'm still struggling a bit with 3 songs.  I would call the other 3 done, though, so I'm about halfway there.  I also just set the appointment with the mastering company for October 14th so it HAS to be done by then, not to mention that if I were to work on this album much longer that I'd probably go completely insane.  You can only tinker and listen to something so many times before madness creeps in.

In other news, I've been tinkering more with the next Jazz Machine album's ideas, trying to get a bit more form into what I think I'll be recording.  I'll probably open those sessions fairly soon, possibly during the holidays when I tend to take a decent amount of time off.

I also got my hands on a couple new pieces of gear, not to mention that I'm getting ready for a complete studio upgrade, so there are lots of things afoot.  The new studio upgrade should give me a lot more firepower when using effects and plugins but I'm also hoping the new improved audio interface will have some definite audible audio improvement.  I guess we'll see.

Closing In

I'm about a week overdue already on the mix for "I Miss You Most at Nighttime" but I'll simply blame it on the US Open since it completely distracted me from my work for over a week's worth of time.  I will say that I'm closing in on the final mix at long last, though.  I only really wanted to work on it for 3-4 weeks, and this is already week 5, but I think it's coming along nicely at this point AND I've learned a bit along the way, especially about bass and drums.

The songs have actually changed a bit from what I had over a month ago.  I've added quite a few subtle but noticeable details that have made certain things stand out more.  I can usually tell right away if I like a change, and whereas I did throw out a decent number of experimental changes, I'm pleased to see that more of them have stayed versus being thrown in the dumpster.  Overall, I really like this album, especially after listening to it repetitively for the past few weeks.  It's a pretty easy listen, I think, and I can't even really say that I'm sick of it yet, and you have to realize that I've heard it hundreds of times now since I also have to listen to it when I working on it.

This album has taken the majority of my time so I'm afraid that "Mirror Land" is still being neglected at this point.  I will get back to it soon, I think.  The wheels are already in motion in my head for the next Jazz Machine album which I really look forward to working on hopefully in the not too distant future.

That's it for now - more later in the week, perhaps.

Where Do Those Titles Come From??

Naming songs and albums is an interesting business, I think.  There are probably a billion ways to go about arriving at titles but I figured I'd share my approach and thinking on the topic.

This has more or less come up since one of my favorite bands, Marillion, just put out a "guess the new album title" mini contest for their fans by supplying us with the initials of the words in the title (in this case, it's "AHBID") and we get to guess the actual title.  As you can maybe imagine, I think I failed miserably.  I mean, I racked my brain for at least a couple of hours, and then I even combed through the Thesaurus.  It was pure hell AND my answers were still borderline ridiculous.

I don't know how Marillion comes up with their titles exactly but I will tell you this, and it may slightly be a shock:  I put almost no thought whatsoever into my titles.  Now, let me step that back just a bit...  It's not that I don't think about it at all, it's just that I usually let the title come to me rather than me going to the title.  In other words, the first thing that comes to my mind that makes sense - voila!  That's the title.

I know this seems a bit strange considering I'm someone who deeply weaves themes and songs together in an almost concept album sort of way but that's the truth of it...I probably spend the least amount of time on the actual song titles.  Album titles aren't much different for they usually just come to me without any real searching or struggle.  Even the band names I come up with have pretty much the same process, although I may spend months debating if I actually like the proposed name (that's a whole 'nother story).

I particularly like working with instrumental song titles since there's truly no boundary or expectation whatsoever.  If you want to call a song "Lemon Curd", well, you can since no one really knows what lemon curd should sound like and no one's going to be singing it as a refrain in the song.  Now that I think of it, I might need to write that title down...hmm.