I've reached that age where I've thought about doing a task enough that I actually think that I've done it. For example, I've in my head written an entry in this blog called "Whatever Happened to that '...Opsimath' album anyway?" about 10 times but apparently I've never actually done it. Hmph. Even weirder, I actually physically wrote the below over a year ago and somehow never actually published it to the old blog. It's almost like the spirit of the "Opsimath" issues are still alive! Frightening.
Anyhow, I decided to re-open the casket, not knowing what kind of cobwebs and other critters I would encounter. Yes, it's the gravesite known as "Theories for the Opsimath", my so-called triumphant solo album that was started in 2001 and nearly was the death of me, taking all the way until 2010 when I finally said "...to hell with it". I clocked enough hours on that album, from writing to tracking to attempting to mix and fix, probably enough for about 7 albums. I mean, the amount of time that I spent on that project was beyond words and completely ridiculous. And what did I get? Utter disappointment on all fronts, basically a product that was unlistenable. After much trying, I finally couldn't take it anymore and decided to just throw it aside and possibly revisit it once my skills, ear, and knowledge were a bit better, not to mention my interest and stamina rejuvenated. It ended up being the correct choice although I know I let a ton of people down in doing so, etc., but I really wish I had put it aside earlier so that I didn't waste an entire decade of my life.
So, here's the story of that album, being told in print for the very first time. It all started like this: my first real recorded album was "Lost Weekend", simply put just an experiment in playing instrumental, something I had never done. Up until that point, I had never played a lead in my life on guitar - no joke. I also had no real clue how to record an album, just my 2 ears and a lifetime of listening to music. That album was done ultimately on 2 Alesis ADAT recorders running S-VHS digital tapes tracked through a fairly cheap 24 channel Behringer analog mixing board. I recorded most of it direct through a guitar unit called the Digitech 2112 of which I still have, and it doesn't sound that realistic, to be frank. Recording direct in this nature is a bit on the silly side anyway, I think, and I simply didn't have the gear to record amps and such back then, let alone know how to do it in an efficient way. So, "Lost Weekend" was quite an experiment all the way around that kind of worked on some level and took 3 years to complete. To my complete and total surprise, people liked it. I was beyond filled with anxiety when I self released it because I thought it was incredibly poorly done but apparently no one really noticed that or focused on it. There was even a time where I seriously thought about throwing the entire album in the waste bin, but again, much to my shock, people seemed to like it. Go figure.
Hot off the heels of that project, I decided it was time to get back to the "real" me, which at that time was vocal work. I therefore set off on a brand new musical journey of 10 new songs coupled with 2 older favorites. I wrote for about a year and then started recording, this time wanting to NOT record direct and instead mic amps and such. That's when the issues began.
Like I said, I had no idea how to record an amp. Looking back on it now, I can't help but shake my head at some of my errors. It should be mentioned that, although the internet was out there, it wasn't filled with info like today, nor was I really used to to seeking info out in that manner. This left me pretty much on my own, puzzled, scratching my head, and so on. I would spend an entire afternoon recording guitars and then listen to it back and not understand why it sounded awful. In my head, the logical solution was that I did something wrong and therefore I should re-record it. And so, I did...again...and again...and again...and again... This is what I mean by I basically spent enough recording time to do about 7 albums.
Take this mentality and times it by multiple years. That's right, not days or months but years, simply recording pieces over and over until they sounded semi decent/acceptable (notice I didn't say "good"). Then, there was the piece about actually putting the album together in a nice cohesive way, another skill I really hadn't yet gotten my head around, but hell did I learn it the very hard way. Again, more years go by.
Also, did I mention that I early on made the decision not to use traditional drums? Yes, another great decision (sarcasm, of course). More years added on, trying to make that overly ambitious idea work on some level. Initially, I thought the whole album would be semi acoustic based with maybe some light world beat sounding drums. I had a Roland electronic hand drum unit at the time that I thought would do the trick...until I realized I'm not trained at all as a hand drummer. I fought with this concept for quite awhile until I finally gave up, only leaving scant traces of those parts on the album. I instead decided to use traditional drum machines instead but since many of the tracks were already in motion, this meant trying to sync a drum machine track to already recorded songs. Now, in the modern world, this isn't a terribly awful task but when you're basically working with tape, this is very difficult to accomplish and often a bit messy. Now, I say "tape" but it was really a digital recorder; however, it didn't have any of the visual screens or capabilities so it might as well have been tape since it pretty much had the same limitations. And so, much more time was spent on weird little drum machine tracks that didn't really sound optimal.
Finally, after years of fighting with the recording, I thought I had it done. I knew it was a bit clunky, mind you, but I thought I had it enough. This started the endless mixing phase. I was using the Mackie D8b system which I opted for back in 2001 since it more closely resembled a traditional mixing board, etc., since the idea of doing something in a computer completely scared the hell out of me at the time (yet another wrong decision, for had I opted for Pro Tools via a computer instead, I think I would have been happier). Also, the Mackie D8b/MDR system cost a small fortune for someone who was making almost no money at all. I worked almost the entire decade just to pay the dumb thing off, and then, when I sold it, I think I got a whole $500 for it. Yes, pure pain.
Back to mixing... Well, the D8b had very little power since it was developed around 2000, and now it was 2008-ish. It was like using an old Windows machine from the 90's ten years later. Automation was beyond ridiculous since half the time the machine didn't respond to the commands in a timely manner due to lack of memory, which completely defeats the purpose of automation during mixing. I encountered all kinds of issue, including terrible plugins (again, the machine had no real power behind it) and so on. I also didn't have good monitors to mix by and so it became a complete and total nightmare of at least another 2 years, and we're talking me fiddling and mixing every weekend for countless hours.
My frustration level was through the roof. I had so many mix CD's lying around that I could cover my living room floor with them (I have a picture of them somewhere - it's absurd). And still, it didn't sound that great.
Finally, I got it as good as I thought I could and was willing to live with it. And then, the nail in the coffin - sibilance. It wasn't that I didn't know that there was as sibilance issue with my singing previously but I didn't realize just how bad it actually was. After careful evaluation and soul searching, I realized that it was unlivable and completely ruined the recording. The only way to fix this sort of issue in a mix is via automation, which as I said didn't work well anyway, or using a de-esser which had an effect of completely removing too much of the "s" sound, leaving me sounding like someone with a bad lisp. That's when I caved.
I made one more attempt a year later, giving the entire album to someone who had Pro Tools (it was now around 2010) to see if he could do any magic. He worked on it for about 6 months and I paid him a fee to do so but that didn't work either. It seemed the only real solution was to completely re-record the vocals, and it took me forever the first time to record the vocals since my voice had already started going out in the early 2000's. The task looked impossible and, by this time, my spirit had simply given out.
And so, the album got shelved, smartly. I instead began working on a Robyn Hitchcock cover song album purposely that I called "It's Raining Elvis Fish!" with one goal in mind...to try and figure out at least half of what I did wrong on TFTO and then correct my techniques. It sort of helped but not really, hence that one's been in the remix stage for ages as well. From there, my band Defrost Nixon was already in motion and we started on that recording of which I'm actually mixing right now (again, over a decade later).
Let's just say that it's been a tough and very long road. If I could do it all over again, I'd certainly do it differently. This is partly why the "I Miss You Most at Nighttime" album was such a big deal for me since it was the first release I've ever done that, well, actually sounds decent AND was put together on a normal time frame.
So, that's the story of "Theories for the Opsimath" and why it was never released, and that's just the highlights, actually. Living through it was a total nightmare and incredibly defeating to my confidence and spirit. It's amazing that I even found the strength to try again, to be blunt. And yet, here I am. I guess that says something about me.
Will TFTO ever be released? An excellent question, and actually, yes, I'm hoping to revisit that album, possibly in the next 2 years. There are many questions attached to this idea, however, and it requires some real soul searching. My entire recording process now is so different from back then that I fear that I'd start rerecording every little piece of the album, and I'm not sure that it's actually worth that amount of time. So, a) what exactly do you rerecord, b) how much do you do, c) how much time do you want to spend on it, and d) what do you think the final output will be? These are the questions that I need to answer internally. I will say, though, that I recently decided to take a peek under the TFTO gravestone and see just what the heck is living under there, and start the gears turning slightly. Obviously, the vocals are the number one priority and need to be recorded in their entirety so that's probably where I'm going to start (some are actually already in motion), but I'm also thinking that I'm going to want to redo some of the electric guitars as well. The question is what exactly should be considered sacred and untouchable (if anything) on this album and what isn't? Tough questions.
In listening to some of the songs, I was amazed at how young my voice sounded on these old recordings. Wow. I wish I still had that sound but alas I don't. One thing is for sure...the title is fairly ironic since it does look like I have become the opsimath after all. Sigh.