Waitin'

I don't have much to report at the moment, hence no post over the weekend.  I have 2 weeks off of work starting this weekend and so I'm simply mentally gearing up.  The agenda is mainly about mixing, still trying to wrap up the "Mirror Land" EP and really focusing on both the "Lost Weekend" remix and the Defrost Nixon mixes.

Peele has been working on the mix for "The Effects of Connection" and I'm currently waiting on his second draft.  The first was decent but there were a few issues.  As expected, he's mainly battling problems with the drums, and these are the same issues I've been battling with the Defrost Nixon album in general.  If nothing else, now I know it's not just me.

I'm really curious to see how far I can get with the "Lost Weekend" remix over the next couple of weeks.  I'm thinking (hoping?) that I can take it quite far, if not nearly to completion.  Is it possible?  I guess we'll see.  It'll be a good test to see how much the equipment investment has paid off and how much I've actually learned.

I've also started planning out what I want to get accomplished and released in 2023.  2022 ended up being a year of learning, more or less, so I'm hoping everything pays off in 2023 and that I do a bit of catch-up.  If all goes well, I'd like to see releases for the "Mirror Land" EP, "The Effects of Connection" b/w "Two Step", the "Lost Weekend" album, the Defrost Nixon album, the yet to be fully recorded "Yet I Tried for You" EP with MWP and Seth Tiven, and the new Jazz Machine album.  It's a little bit of every sound under the sun, really.  Sounds ambitious, huh?  I do agree but there is a decent chance that I can do this...with a little bit of luck, that is.  They're all mainly mixing projects only except for the latter two.  No matter what happens, it should be an interesting year.

Schtuff

I was able to work at a more leisurely pace this weekend on various tasks including mixes.  My work week last week was near hell; the previous week was just as awful, if not worse.  I've basically been near collapsing after my work days and it's quite incredible that I've found any energy at all to actually work on music related stuff in the evening.  A quiet weekend without major commitments and/or house chores is just what the doctor ordered.

I finally got around to looking at the CD text for "...Miss You Most...".  I actually went to the website and sent in a request to have the album info updated about 1-2 months ago (I lost count).  I just never got around to re-checking it.  Well, I did just now and it wasn't updated, which was pretty much what I figured.  I found an alternate way to upload the info directly from Windows Media Player and that's actually uploading as I type this.  Fingers crossed that this approach works.  It's really annoying to put in your own CD and see both your name spelled wrong and the album title cut off in the middle, and therefore meaning something slightly different.

Mixing was pretty interesting this weekend.  I did a ton of work and decided to start over on all three tracks for the "Mirror Land" EP.  It's unofficial right now if that was the correct approach but I'm remaining hopeful.  More on that later in the week, once I've evaluated the tracks.

I will say that "Two Step", my Throwing Muses cover song from long ago, is sounding fantastic, in my opinion.  That's great because I know I thought it sounded like pure cr*p for many mixes, and then I decided to do a bit of re-recording, including the guitars and main vocal (I did it probably about a year and a half ago), and it seems like it was the right approach.  If all of my mixes sounded this good, well, I'd be in business.  It kind of suggests to me that I wasn't compiling my songs well in the past and that very well could be part of the issue with the "Mirror Land" EP.

I also believe that "The Effects of Connection" is ready to be sent to Peele for mixing since I finally got around to working on that a bit.  I'm highly curious to see how that goes.

If nothing else, I should have at least 2 tracks ready to go by year's end.  I have more time off coming up so I'm hoping to hit both the Defrost Nixon mixes as well as return to the "Lost Weekend" remix.  It's also on my agenda to start putting together "Sorry, I Forgot to Mention This", the new Jazz Machine album.  Lots of fun stuff afoot.

Excited

I just spent an evening doing some light recording and some light "test" mixing, and I must say that I'm rather excited.  The recording went really well and was super easy.  I simply needed to add two short solo-ish pieces to two different tracks, both of which I'm trying to wrap up in the next 30 days or so.  I was shocked to see how much better I'm playing these days.  I mean, I think I've finally, after all these friggin' years, reached that point (or have begun to reach that point) where I can play pretty much whatever I want.  Now, I'm not trying to suggest that I'm some master guitar player, mind you, but I never set out to be that.  I can, however, pretty much pick up a guitar, plug in, and simply play a solo without really even thinking about it, and if you were on my shoulder throughout the last 30 years or so, you'd understand why this is so exciting.

I remember watching a Pink Floyd documentary where there was footage of them making "Dark Side of the Moon", and David Gilmour is basically sitting with a guitar in hand playing different pieces off the top of his head over the music I think for "Time".  I completely marveled at this back when I saw it, perhaps about 25 years ago.  How the hell does he do that, I wondered?  Well, I think I can finally do that.  Wow.

I actually feel rather "legit".  It's a shame it took almost my entire life to get here but better late than never.  Of course, I still have a billion miles to go ahead of me if I want to continue down this road but, at least for now, I'm pretty tickled at where I'm at.

After finishing up the recording session, which went so well that there were only 4 passes at each part and literally no editing (another shocker), and I think the whole thing took only about 25 minutes, I then decided to play around with some mixes of old cover tunes that I've recorded over the years.  Most of these have never sounded good.  I mean, no matter what I've done with them, no matter what machine I've mixed them on, they always sound rather awful to me.  Ah...but I've recently stepped up my mixing game a bit, found a few new plug-in's that I really love, a couple new tricks, and of course the best thing I've got in my back pocket...my new monitors and headphones.

Now, when I go to purchase something, especially something that's a bit on the pricey side, I tend to think in terms of what I currently own and then ask, "...are these 3 times better than the <enter name of current gear here> since they cost 3 times more?"  Well, my Focals do cost 3x the amount of my old JBL's.  Do they sound 3x better?  Absolutely.  I mean, there's no contest here at all.  Had I known how much better these were, I would have bought them years ago.

So, here was the challenge...  With all these new tricks and such, can you take a track that you haven't even listened to in years and make it sound good and listenable in one session?  The answer = yes!  I did about 5 songs and every single one of them came out positively...again, in one session!  I mean, I can't begin to tell you how exciting this is.  It's literally a game changer.

Also, I recently found the "Dreamy" verb hidden in the UA 480L reverb plugin and I've been experimenting with it heavily.  It's also a real game changer.  I used it in every mix tonight and it's just so perfect for my sound.  I'm super excited to revisit the "Lost Weekend" mixes over Christmas break for I think it's going to be very positive.  I also firmly believe that I can turn mixes around at least 5x faster now than even 6 months ago, possibly even faster than that.  I mean, I can get a mix sounding good in one session?  It used to take me about 30 on the D8b; my mixes from the last "Jazz Machine" album took me about 10.  I can get this down to 1 maybe?  Holy sh*t.

I kind of figured that I just needed to let the dust settle a bit after finally deciding on stereo speakers and getting these new monitors.  I have been purposedly avoiding any heavy mixing because I wanted to adjust in a calm manner but I think I'm ready to roll.  The dust has settled, now let's get this stuff done.

I'm also super excited about starting work on the new Jazz Machine album.  I think it's going to be awesome.  I think both my playing AND mixing should be way better this time around.  How cool would that be?  Wow.