Getting Ready for Time Off

I'm slowing gearing up for my Xmas 2 weeks off, time I greatly look forward to.  This year has been incredibly stressful and busy beyond belief and I'd love to have some relaxation time.  Unfortunately, I'm not taking an actual vacation but I will be mixing daily, trying to play a bit of catch up in general.  It'll just be great to only focus on music for awhile, something that I truly do look forward to.

The Defrost Nixon mixes are coming along quite well.  I went over the parts I recorded last weekend and I think everything is a 'go'.  I will say that there are still some flaws in my setup that I need to look into further but I'm at least able to work with the sounds I got last week.  I'm a little annoyed with myself that I used the SM57 for "Semaphore"; personally, I haven't had a tremendous amount of luck with that mic, and/or I'm not doing the best placement of it.  In general, I have more luck running the U87ai with a Royer R122, and my recording for "Marooned" went much better with that arrangement.  In both cases, though, I'm heavily relying on the direct signal to carry me through which wouldn't be my preference in general.

I'm hoping to have half the album wrangled by this coming weekend.  "Wrangled" means that the main sound and overall idea of the mix is there, and it also means that there could be endless tweaks for days after but they're to smaller details, just getting everything as right as possible.  I also worked more on the newer versions of the "Mirror Land" EP and those are nearly complete as well.  I think I've gone through about 7 iterations of those mixes this year, each time changing them due to some new technique or idea that I had just learned about.  In the end, though, I think it's all for the best although it's taken all year to get these done.  They've been a great sounding board for learning, though, and that was the intent all along.

This Saturday, my first official day off, I'm going to start working on the "It's Raining Elvis Fish!" mixes.  My days will be filled with doing at least one "...Fish!" song per day, then making tweaks to "Mirror Land" and Defrost Nixon as needed, and then trying to also fit in "Petty Cash" and my original 3 Song Acoustic EP.  Sounds busy, huh?  Yeah, it will be but I seriously need to play catch up here, plus it's good for challenging myself with what I've learned.  The 2 latter releases are quite simple and short in nature so they're not that heavy of a lift.

One thing I DO know is that anyone that tells you that making and mixing music is easy is completely insane :)  I mean, there's no way that one person can learn how to do all of these things in a short amount of time.  In fact, it's been an incredibly long process for me to simply get to a point where things actually sound good or decent.  However, the only way to progress is to accept your ability at any given time and then keep pushing your own boundaries.  That's been my approach, at least.  The other option is to of course pay someone to do it for you, but you're taking them at their word that they know what they're doing, and in this world you never really know.

The project that got moved to next year is unfortunately the "Wrecking Ball" album.  Had I stayed on task, that's what I'd be working on right now, hence my needing to play catch up.  I've come to terms with this, though, and I feel confident that I can get the above 4 items done by the end of January.  I've also made a decision, a big one, to try and do the mastering myself via some plugin's that I've recently acquired and find to be pretty amazing (and cheap).  Then, I'm going to opt to print a smaller number of CD's since I can't justify the price of the methodology I had been following, so I'm hoping to reduce my costs greatly, enough that I can actually put things out quicker, cheaper, and w/o a ton of major concern about what I'm going to do with it, etc.  And, of course, I still want to create some merchandise but I simply haven't had the time.  I'm hoping to find some help in 2025.  One can only hope.

Marooned

As planned, today was all about the redo of the main guitar on "Marooned (Not Lost)".  I thought it would be the easier of the two; turns out it was harder and/or took longer.  I literally spent all afternoon trying to get the right sound, right microphones, right microphone placement, etc.   I didn't physically get around to doing the actual recording until about 7pm, of which I then did my usual 3 takes and edited the part.

I always feel bad for my neighbors when I do this because it's bad enough that they have to deal with the noise of the electric guitar thundering away, but even worse they have to hear me start and stop the same part over and over for hours as I'm testing things out.  I'm sure at least one neighbor is out there thinking, "Geez...is that the only part he can play or somethin'?!"

As much as it was a bit trying, it was a good day and weekend overall and I actually learned quite a bit about mic placement.  I've been wanting to toy with this for awhile now but I'm usually in a rush so I just default to my old standbys.  This weekend, though, I used both microphone pairings and mic placement that I've never used before and I found it kind of fascinating.  It's amazing the difference you get from just moving a mic literally a couple millimeters.

All in all, I think I got what I set out to accomplish on both tracks.  They sound a bit different, of course, but close enough that I don't think it'll be any major adjustment for me, and both now seem to play much better in mono as I had hoped.  Part of the secret seemed to be capturing the direct signal so that I could blend it on top of the mic'd signals, thus creating a clearer tone that cuts through better.  I ended up running those direct signals through the Eleven Lite plugin, one I've never used before, and I must say that it worked perfectly in comparison to the other weird distortion and overdrive pedal plugin's that I usually reach for.  I don't know if the Eleven Lite is a ProTools offering or if I have it because I physically own an Eleven unit; not sure.  Regardless, though, it has a very real sounding overdrive to it that I particularly like so I'm sure I'll be using it quite a bit going forward.

The downside is that I have a couple more electric guitar parts to lay down before I think this album's recording is done, at least instrumentally.  I still harmonies to record as well.  However, I think I'll try to lay down those last guitar parts maybe on Tuesday night and see how it goes.  I'm eager to get this wrapped up so I can move on to other projects.

Redos

This weekend is all about redoing the main guitars on 2 songs from the Defrost Nixon album, namely "Marooned (Not Lost)" and "Semaphore on all Fours".  These are the only two tracks that I've really been struggling with the main guitars on when it comes to the mono mixes.  After doing a bit of research, I found that "Marooned" is one of the tracks way back when that I had made the poor choice to attempt to record the guitars in stereo, meaning splitting the output from a delay and/or reverb pedal and then shooting it to two different amps...in the same room, mind you.  You can probably imagine what that gets you...a literal mess of sound and phase.

"Semaphore" on the other hand has a very strange main guitar part that more or less needs a bit of delay, and then it needs to played in a very specific manner.  I think what I had recorded would have been fine if only I had also recorded a direct signal pre-pedal.  That's where I shot myself in the foot.  Because I don't have that work with, it also just fades into a mess of phase via the mono mix.

I've not historically had very good luck when trying to rerecord main guitars.  In fact, I would say that I've been batting around a 60% failure rate; possibly higher.  It usually stems from not being able to exactly replicate the same sound, and because of that the rerecorded part is more or less useless to me.  Knowing this, I went into today fully prepared to spend a ton of time just making sure that I've got a workable sound and tone before ever actually laying down a real track.

It took me over 2 hours to finally get to a point where I felt I had a decent sound to record.  Then, the actual recording began which I only intended to do 3 takes, my usual amount, but ended up doing 5.  I was having issues with the beginning of the track so I recorded about 5 more takes of just the first 30 seconds or so.  It gave me enough to work with where I could compile something together.

Overall, I think it worked.  I never actually celebrate until I hear something the next day since there have been countless times that I think I have what I want and then hear it the next day, wondering what the hell I was thinking.  So, I guess I'll reserve judgement until tomorrow at least.  I will say that what I got this time around seems to be cutting through as hoped in the mono mix and much to my surprise doesn't deviate that much from the original.  It also doesn't have the annoying grindy noise that the original had, something I think more or less came from a bit of unwanted distortion from the preamp back then.

I'll be working on "Marooned" tomorrow.  I expect that one to be slightly easier but I also need to work on the refrain guitars, possibly the last guitar parts that I need to record.  It would great to put this behind me at long last although it has been kind of fun to work on.

Mix City

I'm sure it probably seems like I've abandoned all of my blogs but in reality I've just been swamped beyond belief.  "Work" work has been hell in itself, and then music work has been consuming any spare time that I can possibly carve out.  This year in general has been...well, somethin'.

I've been off all week and working on nothing but the Defrost Nixon album.  The goal was to have a listenable album by Monday, and I think I'll be close although I have a couple of true problem child tracks that are going to cause me a bit of grief and deeper research.  I can't begin to tell you how much I look forward to working on something actually brand new versus recorded decades ago, that is when I get there.  With new recordings, the hope is that everything is recorded well; with the old stuff, well, it's a crap shoot, hence sometimes endless issues to deal with.

I know I'm a broken record but I can't even begin to tell you how much I've learned about mixing this year.  I mean, where I started and where I'm finishing is quite incredible, and in all reality that was the goal of pushing myself so hard this year.  I wanted to walk away from 2024 at long last feeling pretty confident in being able to handle anything that a mix can throw at me, and whereas I'm certainly no expert, my confidence level has gone up greatly.  I would actually feel confident enough to offer my services to someone at this point.

For anyone new to mixing and recording, and by that I mean someone who's actually using microphones to record instruments such as guitars, etc., in other words not electronics, I can't possibly recommend Auto Align 2 enough.  Seriously, this should be the very first plugin that you plunk the money down for since it's a life changer.  It is a bit expensive, mind you, but well worth every dollar, and you'll use it literally every session.  It's a necessity so just accept it and don't waste time putting it off.

I've also learned a ton about the various delay plugins that are out there, and I'll tell you...and I've learned the hard way...they're not all created equal nor do they have the same intent, which seems very head scratchy to me.  They're also not always very clear about what exactly they do and/or where to use them, the latter being the hardest part with plugins and mixing in general.  You'll find countless videos online about mixing and such but so few people ever seem to talk about when to use something versus how to use it.  It's kind of crazy.  I try to do a certain amount of experimentation weekly, just to try things out and get a feel for them.

Defrost Nixon was supposed to be done at the end of October, and in reality I had barely started it at that point.  As of right now, I'm only working towards having a listenable album, and then I'll enter the world of repetitive listens, endless notes and changes, and so on.  Who knows how long that process will take.  The earliest I can see this being done and released is the first of the year, if I'm lucky, and I haven't even started on the artwork yet, so that date doesn't look too positive either.

"Mirror Land" was supposed to be out, well, back in July, and still is yet to be released.  It'll probably come out around the first of the year as well, pushing DN back a couple months.  For my 2 weeks off in December, my focus will be split on starting the "It's Raining Elvis Fish!" mixes and then cracking open the "Wrecking Ball" album, the latter which was supposed to be my main focus.  Obviously, everything's being pushed back by multiple months but it's not due to any sort of laziness on my part whatsoever.

That's the news I have for now.  Hopefully, my next entry will be an evaluation of the DN preliminary mixes.

To Record or Not to Record

Yes, I'm still neglecting my blogs.  Hmph!  Again, I've just been too damn busy with a lot of various things going on.  I have been mixing like a frantic goon throughout this month, though, and I finally got the "Mirror Land" mixes down, just in time to...

...yes, you guessed it, I did try re-recording yet another guitar part on the EP, today in fact.  I know - goofy, really.  But, I kind of had to do it, just to see what it would sound like if I redid it.  I can't yet say if it actually worked because I did a whole bunch of recording today for the Defrost Nixon album as well, and I was short on time so I blew through it and didn't even finish the editing.  I'll know more in a couple of days, once the dust settles.  My initial impression was positive but something I feel differently a day or two later.

I will say that it was really nice pulling out the mic, hooking up the guitars, and doing some recording again.  I actually have barely played guitar at all since I was off at the beginning of September so I'm fairly rusty, but luckily I'm also able to play well enough to hit the 'record' button.

And so, I need to make some decisions this week, such as when I plan to actually release "Mirror Land" at long last, etc.  I still have to work through the artwork and such but I'll just need to squeeze it into my schedule.  My work life has been rather hectic lately as well so it's been pretty much nothing but work in one fashion or the other.  I was also thinking about making some t-shirts available, and idea I've been kicking around for some time.

I have other news to share but I'm going to wait to share since the actual items in question haven't yet arrived yet.  It should be interesting!

Neglect!

I've been greatly neglecting my blogs over the past month.  What the heck, right?!  Honestly, I've just been so very busy (and exhausted from being busy) that I've totally forgotten about writing here.  Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe but actually true.

Mixing is still going well but I'm greatly behind in multiple ways.  I turned a couple new corners over the past month and this has led me down a few rabbit holes.  Having said that, I'm still on track with what I'm working on, although it's looking more and more likely that there's no way in hell that I'll get Defrost Nixon as far as I wanted to by the end of the month.  Hmph.

There's also a big guitar auction this week and there are multiple pieces that I'm interested in.  You wouldn't initially think it but an auction requires a sh*t load of prep work, just so you have all your ducks in a row, etc.  Even though these things happen online, there's still that auction "anxiety" that can take you over in the moment, and you really don't want that when dealing with high priced items.  I'd also recommend keeping your cats away from your keyboard.  I've never personally had a cat win an item during an auction but it's been too close for comfort.

Other than that, I've got nothing too major right now to report.  I am planning on seeing Al Di Meola tomorrow night at the Magnolia and I'm sure it'll make me cry...not because his playing is so emotional but because it'll make me feel like I have no idea how to play the guitar whatsoever.  That's the downside to watching somebody like Al play; it's soul crushing.

Hopefully, I'll have more to report soon.  I just wanted to break the ice since it had been awhile.

Last Day

Today was my last day off before having to return to work.  It's always a bit sad in a way but also a bit of a relief since almost 9 days straight of working on music can wear you out a bit.  I got off to an early start today, getting in about 2 hours of mixing time before the US Open Men's Final.  I then watched the match and returned upstairs to do another 2 hours, then ate dinner, and did yet another couple of hours.  It was a long day.

"Usurper", the opening track on the album, was the track to work on today.  This one's been a bit of a problem child for awhile now and I did a lot of various recording during Memorial Day in hopes of trying to finally get it to gel.  In revisiting the track and those parts, I found a bit of a mess since I had recorded stuff all over the place, and I couldn't even get my head around what the heck I was doing only a few short months ago.  The first part of the day was focused on Auto Aligning the parts, then I worked on the drums for quite some time, and then I started working through the various guitar parts.

At the end of the day, it's still nowhere near to being done but I did work through a decent amount of issues and was able to get the track setup for full mixdown.  I need to go through all of these songs this week and start writing down what parts I might want to add, in hopes of knocking the majority of those out maybe next weekend.

Yesterday, I worked on "Our Satellite's Collide" as planned both before and after watching the women's final.  That track is fairly complete and seemed to come together quite well but that wasn't a total surprise.  I figured that one would behave.

I'm also going to go through the "Mirror Land" EP this week in hopes of getting that ready to go as soon as possible.  I really want that one out for mastering as soon as physically possible.  It's simply been sitting around for way too long at this point.

All in all, it was a pretty good week and I learned a ton that I didn't know before this time off started.  I'm excited about the mixes I have in the works and I feel confident that they'll be my best work to date.  I actually can't wait to share them.

Tennis Instead

I accomplished absolutely nothing yesterday, as I figured, and instead favored the Men's Semi Finals over doing anything music related.  I think everyone deserves at least one day off, right?  Damn, I hope so.

I did spend a decent amount of time planning out the rest of the year, meaning what I'd like to get accomplished before 1/1/25, and then when to work on it and for how long, etc.  These sorts of plans are just that - "plans", and usually don't have non-bumpy rides that inevitably push back the dates, overcomplicating everything.  Let's just say that my plans for the remainder of the year are rather aggressive but I'm going to do the best I can with it.

I also mapped out 2025 at a very high level which unfortunately is another pretty aggressive plan in itself, especially since I'm hoping to be doing a house addition in the middle of the year which will likely take at least three months of that timer.  My thought all along was to work incredibly hard this year and next, and then I can slow down a bit afterward but so far that's proving a bit challenging.  I guess we'll see.

On the plus side, I'm seriously thinking that I've been going about mixing all wrong, meaning my overall process for it, and if my theories are correct I should greatly be able to reduce the amount of time it takes to actually mix something.  This would be tremendous, of course, and I actually think I could potentially get things done in a "normal" amount of time rather than the insanely long spans that it has been taking.  This is only a theory at this point, mind you, but I do believe I'm on to something at very long last.  It would be huge if I'm right.

I think I've also decided to retinker the "Mirror Land" EP yet again on the new machine.  The back story here is that 2 of the 3 mixes were basically done and perfect on my old machine but upon opening them and playing them on the new one, I have tracks clipping here and there.  This is highly unusual, mind you, and after speaking with Avid directly and such, it's a bit of a mystery as to why it's happening.  Regardless, my old machine was pegged on memory so I'm thinking that one may have had the issue, in fact, and may not have been registering the sounds correctly, as strange as that is to say.  I'm thinking I'm just going to yet again retool them a bit for the new machine.  If nothing else, they'll be good going forward since I plan to keep this computer for quite awhile.

That's the news from here.  I'm opting not to watch the Women's Final live today and instead will be working, trying to do a bit of catch up.

Marooned...and Sibilance

Yesterday was finally the day to work on "Marooned (Not Lost)", the biggest problem track that I've had on this album, and I of course began by starting over, undoing what garbage I had created in the previous handful of mixes.  This once again proved to be the right solution and I can't overstate how important it is to NOT be afraid to just throw cr*p out that simply isn't working.

I didn't have as much time to work on the song as I had wanted but I completely remixed the drums, worked heavily on the guitars and vocals, and even worked with the scratch keyboard track that I had laid down back in May.  I walked away with a pretty good sounding track, albeit not completely done but definitely on the right road.  This one has now been taken off the "problem track" list.

I do want to mention that sibilance hasn't really been too major of an issue for me anymore.  I completely destroyed two of my albums in the past due to excessive sibilance in my vocals, which is a real drag and mood killer, let me tell you, and I've personally found for me that using multiple de-essers along the vocal chain seems to work wonderfully, each one taking a little bit out at a time.  It depends on the song, of course, and the vocalist, but my voice has had some really harsh "s" sounds ever since my teeth started shifting back in my 30's.  I've learned to control it a lot more when singing and recording, and let me say that takes some true discipline to do, but there are always some strong "s" sounds coming through.  I've tried a few different de-essers along the way but the built-in for ProTools usually works the best, in my opinion.  The goal is to always make sure you're not taking out too much at any point.

If the de-essers don't fix the vocals completely, and I've had that be the case here and there, there are two other powerful tools to use in your arsenal:  one being fades, that is if the "s" is at the beginning or end of a word and is spaced in a manner that you can fade it in a natural sounding way, and the other being the semi newer PT functionality called "clip gain".  I have really played around with clip gain adjustments over the past year and I must say that I love them, and I now use them all the time.  They're really simple to use and quite forgiving, not to mention way more trustworthy than automation.  In fact, I've had enough issues with automation over the years that I use it as little as possible.  I'd much prefer knowing that my mix is "hard coded" to do something rather than rely on automation working during the bounce, and I've had it more than once not work.

With clip gain, the idea is that if you have a really bad sibilant section of a word, at least lower the volume of that exact section so that you're more or less doing a manual de-ess on it.  I've found that it works amazingly well.  It was one of the newer functions added to ProTools quite a few years ago that I found to be super helpful but I had never really worked with it until recently.

I was supposed to work on "Our Satellite's Collide" today but it's going to be tricky since the men's semifinals are on for the US Open.  I'll mix where and when I can but I doubt it's going to be a heavy work day.  Oh well...  I guess I can relax a bit one day of my week off.

Semaphore

Yesterday wasn't too terribly eventful and went more or less as planned.  I watched more tennis than usual, basically because the US Open is winding down and I thought the matches would be really amazing.  Well, I was kind of wrong about that, and apparently the Olympics have been playing havoc on many of the players, making way too many of the matches rather bizarre in nature.  This US Open won't exactly go down in history as amazing.

"Semaphore on All Fours" is one of my personal favorite tracks on the Defrost Nixon album so it's pretty important to me to make it come to life in a great manner.  I'm particularly proud of this track since it was a bit of an experiment, an arty one at that.  I wrote the main song originally but then had this wild idea of adding a French spoken word part at the end of it, more or less combing two songs almost although they flow really wonderfully into one another.  The end result is nearly a 10 minute song.  The question at the time was how in the hell do you do the French speaking part?!  I knew no one that was fluent in French, mind you.  Somehow, through asking a variety of people, I found someone and it went really well overall except that the vocal itself is probably the most sibilant thing I've personally ever recorded, and that's because Ellen (the speaker) was doing her best to enunciate every single syllable.  Me, like a dummy, didn't stop her...or wasn't really thinking at the time how this would wreak havoc on the recording, so it's really my fault, not hers.  I've been fighting with this particular spoken word part pretty much ever since, trying to make it workable.

This track was always one of the best ones that we played in practice but strangely we never played it out.  Kind of a bummer.  In any event, I always have a lot of pride in anything rather arty leaning in my work and so this one really stands out for me.

I didn't actually get to finish what I was working on but then again I haven't really finished any of these songs all week.  If nothing else, though, it's setup and ready to be heavily tinkered with.

I've Gone Superior

I had a pretty good day yesterday, finally a day with no major surprises.  I'm learning a lot this week about how to pull things together, pump things up, and so on.  It's been pretty interesting so far, all the software upgrade issues aside.  By the way, the Avid "work around" for the MIDi latency issue did NOT work for me so that's a real drag.  I'm still waiting to hear back from their support department which has been historically awful, in my opinion.

"Humor for a Lexophile" now sounds pretty good and is setup for final mixdown.  The biggest challenge with it is that there are 2 different drum sets/drummers, and that's a new one for me.  Trying to make the two sound like one or at least make it not incredibly jarring to your ear is a little difficult.  The song took a major turn for the better I think back in May, when I added the new piano part that's become more of the main melody for the verses.  I hadn't originally seen the track going in that direction but it does seem to work pretty well.  Of course, we never played the song in that manner so it's just a very different sound altogether.  Thank goodness I recorded it back in May for doing it now with this MIDi issue would be a real pain in the rump (thanks Avid!).

I also got an email saying that Toontrack is running a discounted price on crossgrading to Superior Drummer, dropping the price by about $80.  That was enough for me to take the plunge since I was debating about it anyway.  From what I had seen and heard about the software, it has a great function in it for doing what Steven Slate's Trigger 2 does and supposedly does it better.  As I keep saying over and over, I'm not a huge fan of Trigger 2 nor of Steven Slate's software in general so this might be a great fit.  Plus, you get all the sounds of Superior Drummer at your disposal versus the small handful that Trigger 2 gives you.  It's a huge install so we'll see how it goes.

I've also been watching tennis here and there where I can.  It's always a struggle trying to stay dialed into anything when you're juggling multiple tasks and such.  It's still great to see what I can of it although the matches so far have been a bit on the disappointing side.  It seems that every time I start watching and getting into it, someone becomes minorly injured and the match is basically over.

Latency...Just Say No

I had a fairly frustrating day yesterday that completely started out on the wrong foot.  Before starting my mixing session on the next track, "Photographs of You", I wanted to quickly lay down a piano part idea from the day before on a different track.  I wasn't able to accomplish this the first time around since my MIDi Controller wasn't working properly.  Now that that issue was resolved, it should be easy, right?

Wrong!  I played the part, albeit poorly, and then listened to it back.  "Hey, wait a minute...  That's not even in time with the music!  I don't play THAT badly!"  Yes, that's right, ProTools had somehow captured the small part completely out of time with where I recorded it.  WTF?!

I did it again, and again, and again, simplifying it as I went along for ease of listening.  Then, I verified it on the MIDi Editor grid and, sure enough, the notes were lagging about 2/16th notes behind.  Seriously, what the hell?!  I PAID for this upgrade?1

This of course got me off on yet another tangent of research, trying different settings, and so on.  In other words, about 2 hours down the toilet...just to find that it's apparently a bug in the 2024.06 PT software.  Nice!  And, where's the fix?!  I did finally find a supposed workaround later last night that I have yet to try today but hopefully it'll work.  I ended up yesterday just changing my settings slightly for the MIDi options screen which simply made the alignment slightly better but still off, but it was at least easier to snap it to grid since it was closer to being correct.  Ah, you've gotta love switching computers and PT versions, I tell ya...

The rest of my day and mixing was slightly tense since I was behind on time.  I got "Photographs..." setup, etc., and at one point sounding pretty clear but then lost it a bit along the way via tinkering.  The track will definitely need more work and lots of leveling but it's at least ready to be tinkered further.  Ah, the fun.

Salesman, Salesman

 I spent day #2 working on "The Worst Salesman Ever", track two from the Defrost Nixon album.  A small tidbit about this one...  I came up with the whole song based around the lyrical idea of a salesman doing anything possible to make a sale, up to and including donating a kidney.  I thought it was a rather funny idea and I got it from watching the series "Lost", where John Locke has a short back story segment about I believe doing sales and failing at it, if I remember correctly (it's been almost a decade, sorry).  I was actually out of work at the time for 6 months due to a layoff and spent many of my day time hours watching "Lost", trying to keep my mind off of the concept that I was out of work.

These sorts of situations are funny because the amount of stress that being unemployed caused me was incredible.  This was after the housing crisis, back in 2009/2010, and therefore countless people were out of work, making the job market pretty tough.  I was going through grueling interview after interview at the time, and it can quickly break your spirits.  "Lost" was my way of escaping from that, and the question remained how much of the series I'd get through before actually getting hired somewhere.  The sad piece was that job hunting was so very time consuming that I pretty much didn't work on music at all, of which in hindsight makes me angry since it was literally the biggest amount of time I have ever had "off".

Anyway, back to "....Salesman"...  I remember getting that lyrical idea, trying to piece it into a refrain, and the next thing I knew I had a new song.  I presented it to the band and we started playing it almost right away and it's really one of the more hit-sy songs on the album, if you will.  I guess all of those hours with "Lost" weren't an actual loss.

I started yesterday as usual fighting with the drums, and I made the mistake of trying to change the Trigger 2 setup in the session which proved to be a rather dumb thing to do.  I'm not a huge fan of Trigger 2, if you haven't already figured that out, and I find it personally pretty hard to work with.  I guess it really depends upon your source material.  If you have a source that's really well recorded and clean, it's probably super easy; my sources, however, are super noisy and the software simply doesn't know what and when to trigger so it's maddening, to be frank.  My recommendation is that once you have Trigger 2 working adequately, don't sneeze for the whole thing will fall apart.  Also, you should note that most people doing demos of this type of software online seem to be working with abnormally clean source material, which is both misleading and annoying.  Don't be fooled.

I ended up reverting an hour and half's work and starting over, and then began the painstaking process of setting up the mix.  At the 3-4 hour mark, I had it whipped together but the clarity in mono wasn't the greatest.  So, after dinner, I went upstairs again and tinkered more, and I think I got it pretty well laid out by the end of that session.  In fact, I think I need to go back to "My Little Jealousy" and do the same thing to that track.

I am going to have to go through the entire song and basically edit each snare hit for the Trigger 2 program since there are quite a few mishits, probably around 20-30.  It's a fairly awful process but will really help in the long run, but that's something to do for another day.

Question - I was recently watching a video about how some people align all their drums apparently in ProTools via Elastic Audio, basically perfecting the hits, timing, etc.  This kind of blew my mind because my thought was why even have a drummer play if you're going to a) change all their timing and hits to be literally on the mark and b) trigger your drum sounds?  It's fascinating to me since so many people will say "real drummers sound SO much better" and yet in post production the common technique seems to be what I just described.  I'm beginning to think that actual drummers and musicians are simply so disconnected from post production that they have no concept of how much their parts are changed and altered.  Something to think about.  For the moment, I'm opting to not alter the playing to this degree but I might change my mind in the future.

Finally Mixing DN

I survived to my usual Labor Day week off - hooray!  Work (day job) has been incredibly chaotic pretty much since April and so it's been quite exhausting, and therefore just surviving up to this point is a bit of an accomplishment.  Of course, the US Open always conflicts with my music schedule during this week so I'm trying to juggle, albeit poorly.

I finally have the Mac Studio pretty much setup and working as expected.  I actually spent almost 2 hours last night diagnosing an issue with my MIDi controller just to find out, after I solved the issue, that I had actually written a note for myself during my previous computer switch in order to prevent this very dilemma.  Ugh.  I'm not always the greatest at reading my own notes, as you can tell.

Day 1 of mixing went pretty well and was fairly long.  I attacked "My Little Jealousy", one of the tracks I was having an issue with mainly on the drums, and I decided to revert my version backward about 4 versions.  I think this was wise and I probably should do this more often, although it is frustrating losing all of that ground, but if you have inherent issues that you created along the way it's probably the easiest way to safely get rid of them.  For the most part, I walked away with a track that's not 100% but at least ready to be tweaked further for eventual final mixdown.  That's really all I'm shooting for this week for every song.

It's nice to finally be working on the Defrost Nixon material which was supposed to be started in early June.  It should be noted that I did not send out "Mirror Land" for mastering yet because for whatever reason my mixes for those three tracks are going in the red on the new Mac Studio, whereas they were not on the Mac Mini.  I've done quite a bit of digging on this and cannot find why that would be.  It's made me question if the Mac Mini was running out of power and simply acting strangely, making me not completely trust those mixes at this point.  I've had a few other weird occurrences as well that I can't explain but after spending a few evenings on it I simply decided to put it aside once again and move forward as planned.

This should be a fairly interesting week.  Given all that I've learned this year with mixing, my hope is to be able to take a song and actually get it to 80%+ in one day.  That would be amazing seeing my history with mixing but that is my hope.  I'll probably be posting daily, just to chronicle this for myself.  I still have high hopes that I'll be able to release 3 full albums and the "Mirror Land" EP by the end of the year, provided this week goes well.

Hittin' the 'Studio'

I haven't had a post in awhile since it's been a bit crazy around here.  After a lot of planning and discussion, the roof was finally redone on the house, which might sound like not that big of a deal but it ended up taking a lot of my time since I wanted to change the tile type.  Due to the noise and the skittish nature of the cats, it was decided it would be best to go to a hotel for a few days, and that of course yielded its own issues.

I also had an enormous amount of drama trying to make a larger purchase at Costco,  Now, I'm not a huge Costco guy, to be honest, but I had been considering switching from a Mac Mini to a Mac Studio for awhile and Costco just happened to have it on sale on top of their already $200 discounted price.  It seemed the right moment to take the plunge, and why not also open a Costco credit card and upgrade my membership so I get cash back at the end of the year on top of it?  Well, it all sounded good on paper but you wouldn't believe the number of hours and phone calls it took to work all of this out.  I would actually make a whole rather comical blog entry out of it but the situation was so convoluted that I already can't remember all the finer details.

The Mac Studio arrived and only a couple days later the roof work started so it was off to the hotel.  Upon coming back to the house, I'm still fighting to the get solar put back on the roof which has been a minor fiasco in itself.  It wasn't until this weekend that I was even able to take the Mac Studio out of the wrapping and actually plug it in.

I decided to take most of this weekend just to start loading up the computer.  When I switched to the Mac Mini a couple years ago, this proved to be a pretty big task but luckily I kept decent notes.  That plus the power of the CPU of the Mac Studio made most of the installing not too terribly painful but still rather time consuming.  I believe at this point that I have all the software needed on it but I'm not going to actually switch over to the computer, moving the data and such, until the "Mirror Land" mixes are officially done and mastered.  I just remembered last time that I had some weird issues initially in my mixes that caused me some grief so I'd prefer to just wait.  I'm hoping to make the switch within the next 2 weeks and actually more or less need to do so before my week off in 3 weeks so I can continue hammering away at the Defrost Nixon material.

I'm afraid that's really all I have to report at the moment.  I'm hoping to have good news fairly soon.

The "Land" is Mirrored at Last

I'm happy to report that the "Mirror Land" EP is basically done!  Now, I say "basically" because I do have some more minor changes to make but they're all things that are part of the process.  In other words, the core of the mix is done and hardened, and actually it sounds pretty damn good.  I'm definitely getting better at this.

I would suspect that I'll be ready to completely lock down this EP at long last maybe by the end of next weekend.  That means that it might go out for mastering the following week, and then I could post it about a week later and also put in the order for the CD's.  Talk about a monkey off of my back.  I'd say we're looking at a release date of about one month from now.  I can't tell you how ecstatic about this I am.  It's been waaaaay too long in the making and waaaaay too much work on my part.  I don't even want to guess at the number of hours.  However, I went into both of these EP's with the goal of coming out a stronger mixing and recording engineer and I think that is indeed happening for I've learned a ton over the past 6-7 months.

I spent a decent part of today actually re-recording the electric guitar part on the title track.  I did this because there were some deep issues with the original takes that I simply couldn't ignore.  Plus, it's a super simple part, only on the refrains, so it seemed dumb to not do it.  I also added just a tad of hand percussion to the refrain as well because it felt to me like it needed just a little something extra to keep the beat.

This gave me an opportunity to do my first recording with my new Benson Earhart.  I pulled out my Rick 360 and initially started playing every Tom Petty riff that was lingering in my head, and then I started tweaking knobs and got down to business.  At first, I was really kind of frustrated since the part was not recording correctly.  And then, duh...  I figured out what the issue was via muting some tracks by accident.  I was actually routing the output of the track to another buss which was not turned on!  Hah, hah.  Yeah, that'll get ya every time!  That's the downside of recording this late into the process.  As soon as I figured that out, I was like...ah...there's the sound I'm looking for!  And so, the maiden voyage went pretty well.  I will say that the Rick sounded amazing through that amp, especially playing the Petty stuff.  I was definitely having a bit of a Mike Campbell moment.

I haven't had much time to do anything else but I do believe I'll finally get heads down into the Defrost Nixon mixes this coming week.  I'm actually looking forward to it.  Figuring out how to mix drums more efficiently will be a bit of a learning curve but I dare say that it might just be my last major hurdle to get over.  I'll be simply over the moon if the DN stuff gets mixed in a fairly easy and fast manner.  At this point in time, I'm so incredibly eager to start working on new recordings and ideas but I've got quite a ways to go first.

4th of July

I had a pretty good weekend of working on various mixes and such.  I decided after having multiple problems with the vocals (but the same recurring theme) on the "Mirror Land" EP that it was best to simply put time aside last week and try to get to the bottom of the issue.  I think this mentality paid off.

I learned a few new things about parallel processing, specifically on vocals, and it more or less corrected most of the issues.  I decided to first play around with the "Petty Cash" songs since they were "new" to me (never thought I'd say THAT since they're from around 1999) and tried to work out how to make my vocals sound the way I'm hoping.  Some of the techniques I read about online really helped, specifically in parallel processing the vocals, and I found that this approach simply seems to be way more forgiving in the output rather than trying to tweak one EQ just perfectly.  I then transferred what I had learned over to the "Mirror Land" EP and, what do you know, that worked but threw a lot of stuff off again.  Big shock.

I spent a huge amount of the 4 day weekend reworking these tracks, specifically "Optimism" which had multiple problems going on.  After many hours of tinkering, I think I walked away with more or less what I want.  "Only With You" is very close but needs just a bit more work.  "Mirror Land" the song was also greatly reworked but I still have some elements to fight with there, mainly in the Mono mix check.  I don't know why this particular song has been such a beast.

In the middle of all of this, my brand new Benson Earhart (see pic in upper right corner) that had been more or less on order for about 3 years showed up.  I honestly just thought it would be another amp equivalent to my Savage Schatten that I'd simply use for playing out.  Upon plugging it in the first time, I had an experience similar to Marty McFly from "Back to the Future", where the amp didn't physically blow me away but certainly mentally.  I mean, oh my god...  THIS is the real deal!  After all these decades of searching, wow...this thing simply blew my mind.  The resonance, tone, sound, and the response from the amp (and I barely even had the volume up), etc....just amazing.  I do love my Savage amps but I cannot tell a lie...the Earhart is far superior but also far more expensive.  If you can afford one, however, I can't say enough about it, and I'm thoroughly excited to record with it.  Wow.

I Hear that Train a Comin'

It's been awhile since I've posted for a couple of reasons, mainly because I was feeling a bit lousy last week and haven't been doing much work.  I also had other tasks that I had to take care of over the past two weekends so it's been slow going, trying to get back into the swing of things.

I did finally place the order for the "The Effects of Connection" CD's.  Getting the artwork approved this time was super simple since I had made decent notes from my last order.  I'm thinking the CD's will be shipped to me sometime this week.  I'm super happy with how the artwork turned out.

I did spend a bit of time this weekend working on both the "Mirror Land" mixes and "Petty Cash".  The latter is the first EP that I ever put together which consists of simplified cover versions of two Tom Petty songs and "Ring of Fire" ala Johnny Cash.  A friend of mine asked and requested that I remix it so I've been plugging away at it here and there.  It's actually coming together quite nicely and should be done fairly soon.

The other thing I've been working on is getting some t-shirts created on Threadless.  I've had an idea about doing this for a few years now but I'm finally trying to get it started.  It's looking like I'm going to have two different stores, basically one for music related items and the other for everything else.  I'll announce more details about it once it's ready to go since I'm still more or less dabbling at this point.

That's really about all I've got to report at the moment.  My focus right now is pretty much on wrapping up "Mirror Land" asap including the artwork, finishing "Petty Cash", and then continuing my work on the Defrost Nixon album.  My day job related work has been a bit on the harsh side lately so my productivity has definitely slowed a bit but hopefully the train starts moving at full speed again. 

Finishing Up Recording Week

Well, another recording week has come to a close.  It's been both exciting and exhausting, really, with three songs that have had outstanding issues that have been rather challenging to both diagnose and remedy.  I'm not sure that I'm out of the woods on any of them, mind you, but I feel like I'm at least walking away with a plan of action.  Apart from that, I've now touched every song and tried to "finish" them off from a recording perspective.

This past week has been a combination of preliminary mixing, fixing minor recorded bits, and adding new bits to fill things in.  I'm super stoked about some of the guitar sounds I got this week - my goodness.  It's really taken these recordings to a whole new level.  My fairly recent acquisition Fender Mod Shop Jaguar has been amazing paired with an Earthquaker Zoar, OCDGe, and Jam Pedals Dyna-ssor all via a Savage Schatten.  I've never sounded this good before, in my opinion, and I got just the perfect tone from that combo that reminded me immediately of the self titled album by the Cars.

I also learned two incredibly valuable techniques this past week that are once again raising my game a bit.  First up, I finally got around to really using Auto Align 2 on older tracks.  I had many tracks that I just couldn't get power out of; I used Auto Align 2 and voila!  They're much, much clearer.  Ah...the joy of eliminating phase issues, my goodness.  I've now used it on tracks where I thought there was no possible way there could be any phase issue and yet it still sounded better post using it

The other thing, and it's probably a bit of another 'duh' moment, but I learned via a conversation with a friend how to more effectively use parallel processing via either a buss or simply by copying a track more than once.  The latter literally never occurred to me.  I've known about double bussing, if you will, for awhile but I never really got too in depth with cranking up the double buss with a massive amount of compression or contrary EQ.  It did amazing wonders on a couple of tracks and took it from sounding fairly thin to quite huge.  Wow.

The Defrost Nixon album is nowhere near done, mind you, but it's on its way at long last.  I'm setting a tentative release date of 9/1 for it.  I got most of the major recording done and now I just have odds and ends like harmonies, etc., to work on.  I think given everything I've learned in the past couple of years it'll probably end up being my best work yet but I guess we'll see.

How to Write a Song

So, let's talk a bit about how to write a song.  Seriously, there's really no mystery in this; you simply do it no matter what your level.  I've had people ask me all sorts of slightly odd questions over the years, like where do you start when writing a song, how do you get an idea, and so on?  My answer is always the same - you just do it.  In fact, if you're "thinking" about it, you're doing it wrong, at least in my opinion.  It's all very Yoda - you do...there is no try.

You'll find a common thread in most people who write a lot of music, something along the lines of "I don't know where the ideas come from...they just happen and almost fall out of the sky".  This is the old "muse" concept, really.  Yes, that's exactly the way I would describe it as well, and it's almost magical.  It's seriously like some other power is doing it for you but I think it's just that you're so free with creativity that you simply do it with little to no thought.

But, how do you tap into that and get that started?  I've done a lot of observing over the years into the mentality of a wide variety of people and I think it's really quite simple.  I personally think there are creative types and non-creative types.  Creative types simply have a need or constant desire to create, no matter what medium, topic, etc.  Non-creative's, though, tend to over think the hell out of creativity and/or be completely intimidated by it.  That's where the probably lies.

So, what if you are somewhere closer to being a non-creative type but still want to write a song?  Again, just do it.  In other words, pick up your instrument, whatever it is, and just start playing.  It can be random chords, a riff, whatever...doesn't matter.  And then, start humming over it or singing or whatever you prefer.  If it's better, imagine the melody over what you're playing; it really makes no difference.  Sure, in the beginning your "songs" will sound pretty flat and not be incredibly exciting, or maybe you'll just feel that they're missing something, and the odds are that they actually are missing something, but the only way to figure that out is to DO it and do it more.  Trust me...you'll get over the hump if you keep working at it.  And, once you start learning how melody fits over chords, you're golden.

If you're a guitar player, even just starting out, don't be afraid to write a handful or more of simple 2-3 chord songs.  Yes, THOSE are songs too.  I mean, how many people have made countless amounts of money doing just that?  Again, don't think about what you're doing...I'd suggest you feel it.  To me, that's where real songwriting lies, in your own feeling for it.  The odds are that if you feel it, someone else just might as well.

Lastly, do not fall into goofy preconceived notions about what a song is, how long it should be, what the format is, what topics, and so on.  In fact, you should really be working to break or reinvent the rules, not follow them.  Now, having said that, there are certain things that you kind of need to at least roughly follow but truly the boundaries are pretty wide open.  I recently had someone say to me about one of my songs online, "Do you realize this song is 9 minutes long?!"  Um...yeah...I, er, wrote it, remember??!  That's another thing - if you intend to share with the world, just prepare to hear many bizarre comments.  People try to be nice and helpful but they often miss the mark unintentionally.  I think building thicker skin is actually part of the deal in this whole process so mentally prepare for it.

I'm no expert in anything since I have the old school mentality that an "expert" is someone that's been nose down in the books and studied under multiple professors for a decade or more.  I have been writing music for over 30 years, though, and I have written about 300+ songs so I think I have some knowledge in this regards.  I'd be more than happy to help anyone out with the concept of song writing.  At the end of the day, I still live by the old adage that you should write what YOU like, not what anyone else wants to hear.  I swear and live by these words, and at least half of my material wouldn't exist without them.

In the Nixon Trenches

It's been awhile since I've written anything and again it's simply because I'm busy, busy, and busy.  In fact, I've been so busy that in my heart I still think it's March...and yet it's only days away from being June.  When you're extremely "busy", well, time flies at a ridiculous pace and literally your life flies before your eyes.

I took my usual Memorial Day week off from work which was earmarked for working on the Defrost Nixon album and I've been hammering away at it every day since Saturday.  To back up slightly again, this is an album that my old band Defrost Nixon more or less recorded or started back in 2011.  We did most of the album at that time but then just dropped it, for reasons that I actually don't recall now.  I think the main problem was my own limitations in mixing and so I thought the whole thing sounded like crap...and it was actually me that was more of the issue.

Now, having said that, I have had to do some re-recording but for the most part I've been able to keep everything I have.  There have been internal fights, however, over the sound of drums and so on, and I frequently swear out loud at myself when I can't get something to work like I'm hoping.  I'm sure the neighbors think I'm completely nuts...although I'm sure we crossed that barrier many years ago.

I have 9 days off so I'm basically tackling a different song every day.  Now, it's a 12 song album but three of the songs are more or less kind of already glued together so hence I'm keeping my focus on the other nine.  I'm mainly working on making refrains sound bigger, fuller, and more exciting by adding secondary guitars and such.  I'm four songs in and so far I'm actually quite pleased with the results.  I'm also spending a large amount of time each day doing mixing on the track du jour which helps me understand how much or how little to add.  I just got done adding a nice little piano part to "Humor for a Lexophile" and it's amazing how something so simple can completely change the track.  If you're like me, an awful piano player, I can't overemphasize the importance of Midi (geez).

I dare say that this is going to end up being a pretty damn good album, in my opinion, at least.  By Sunday, I'm not by any means thinking it'll be all done but I'd like all the core parts narrowed done and hopefully recorded.  I'm sure there will be some stragglers but that's to be expected.

I still need to find the time to finish up the artwork for "The Effects of Connection" EP.  I think I should stop doing pre-orders since I'm terrible at the follow up.  I'm going to do my best to squeeze that in some time this week as well.

Too Busy

First up, the video version of "As Evening Brings Tears" from the "I Miss You Most at Nighttime" album was finally posted to YouTube yesterday.  You can find it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6mN46fj6U4  I'm still really pleased with it and I think my friend, aka Jack P., did a great job with it.  We're already talking about the next collaboration which will most likely be one or more of the Defrost Nixon tracks.

I've been incredibly busy, basically working my day job and then doing my music work in the evenings, and to say that it becomes exhausting is putting it mildly.  It's what needs to be done, however, and I'm doing the best I can.  I also want to start looking for new band members for the next band project but haven't yet had the time.

I want to say this very plainly if you haven't already picked up on it:  I am not an expert...really at anything.  In this age of disinformation pretty much everywhere, you run into countless articles, videos, you name it, where the author acts like some authority on whatever topic they're talking about.  I'm the opposite; I'm just a guy, like everyone else, trying to navigate his way through creating, recording, and mixing music, along with doing the artwork and everything else.  I'm a one man shop because, well, I kind of have to be since no one else will do it (except for the videos, thankfully).  Therefore, I simply fumble my way through these things, trying to learn by doing and also by trying to find information online that actually does hold some truth.  Luckily, at least in mixing, there's a lot of it out there.

I've been basically tackling 3 Defrost Nixon songs each weekend, trying to get the drums mixed and then start on the rest of the song from there.  I personally think the drums need to be done first since they're so central to the song, and without it you can't really tell how anything else actually sounds.  I will say that I've been very pleased with running drums in parallel, with one buss being put through heavier compression and the Thermionic Culture Vulture plugin.  I would have never thought of using that plugin in that manner on my own but the UA tips videos really help at times and seem trustworthy, that is, when they're not trying to simply sell you yet another plug-in that you'll never use or completely forget about.

I still swear by the Cooper Time Cube plugin and I now use it all over the place.  I usually put it on that same drum buss as well and it makes a world of difference.  It is amazing how that plugin doesn't really seem to cause phase issues whereas the included Stereo Widener plugin that comes with ProTools (I'm spacing on the name right now) can wreak havoc on a Mono mix.  I consider the Cooper Time Cube an essential plugin to own, at this point.

I also finally spent the time on the artwork for "The Effects of Connection" EP CD's.  That task kept getting bounced around just due to lack of time.  I think at the very least I found the font I want to use.  For whatever reason, finding a font can take forever and is much harder to nail down versus the actual photos (you'd think it's the opposite).

I continue to be annoyed as hell with Photoshop.  Talk about a program that didn't need improvement...it was way easier to use back in the day.  Now, to do the simplest thing in the world tends to take me forever, and I'm constantly trying to write notes for myself since nothing seems to be logically where you'd expect it to be.  Personally, I'm not a fan of the layout at all but I'm not sure what the alternative is.

I have two more Defrost Nixon tracks to work on today and then some more "Mirror Land" changes.  Yes, those never seem to end...but hopefully will soon.  I'm actually to the point where I'm really pleased with the mixes; I just have a couple odds and ends that bug me.  Again, lack of time.

Defrosting those Nixon Recordings

Well, it finally happened...  I actually worked on what I'm SUPPOSED to be working on over the weekend!  It's a miracle!  Yeah, well, I'm nearly 2 months behind now, unfortunately, but so far things have been going quite well.  Working on the Defrost Nixon tracks is a very different experience versus what I have been doing for the past few months, mainly because the recordings are a bit fuller with content and also have full on drums.

I decided for whatever reason to start from the back of the album and work my way forward.  This is mainly because the last song, "Our Satellite's Collide", wasn't really "polluted" yet with my old mixing techniques.  Almost all of the tracks on the album already have cleaned up drums and a bit of organization simply from doing many hours of work on them about a year or so ago so that's an advantage at this point.

In general, it's always a weird experience cracking open the vault on something that you wrote and recorded over a decade ago.  You never quite know what you're going to find inside the casket but for the most part, so far at least, I've been fairly impressed with what I have to work with.  I think the album will come out sounding pretty good overall and I can honestly say that, even if I had tried to do this mixing 2 years ago, it probably wouldn't have sounded as good.

Yesterday, I mainly plugged away at "So Much for That", another track that I previously had issues with but walked away from this session feeling rather pleased with the overall sound.  This track does have Trigger 2 drum replacement on it, and working with that program is always a bit of a headache, but it really does add a lot where it needs it.  Today, I started working on "Semaphore on All Fours", probably my favorite tune on the album and also the longest, and just working on mixing the bass and drums alone took me over 2 hours.  The thing I'm enjoying about this so far, though, is that it gives me the chance to work on songs that are fairly clean, meaning I'm not picking up on a half mixed song and then trying to continue in that vein.  In fact, I've recently learned that it's actually sometimes better to just scrap everything you had previously in regards to reverbs, compression, etc., and simply start over using the knowledge that you now possess.

I also did two new rounds of the "Mirror Land" EP, of which I'm pretty happy with the results so far.  I finally listened to it via my stereo through headphones, a usually crucial moment that reveals tons of issues and such, and I found almost none.  Could this EP finally at long last be wrapped up in the next couple weeks?  I know my fingers are crossed on that one.

The downside is that I didn't get to work much on the artwork for "The Effects of Connection" EP.  I do have the two main photos done, I believe, but I still need to mess around with the titles and such.  Believe it or not, that's what usually takes the longest, not to mention other weird odds and ends.

Overall, I'm pleased with my progress but seriously could use a couple four day weekends to catch up.  I've got a week off on the horizon, my usual Memorial Day week off, and I have to start getting my head around what I plan to work on during that time.  Work, work, work...

Stick This in Your Photoshop

I actually did zero mixing this weekend.  That's right, zippo, zero, negative-o, etc.  No, I'm not happy about it but it's how it goes sometimes.  I instead worked on the artwork for "The Effects of Connection" which yielded few results since I spent much of the time fighting with Adobe Photoshop.

Photoshop is one of those programs that's easy to see why someone would get paid a large amount of money if they know it very well.  It's SUPER powerful; knowing how to do anything in the program, however, is akin to making a sturdy structure out of mashed potatoes.

To make it even worse, Photoshop has "simplified" the process over the years, adding in supposed "short cuts" and such.  The problem is that, if they don't work, it gives you absolutely no information on the why it doesn't work.  I've also found the help screens almost more confusing than not using them.  Maybe it's just me...I have an intuitive brain, and we all know that these things are now made for the non-intuitive brain, so it's hard for me to understand that method of thinking, if you will.

So, after sitting at the computer and literally swearing at the screen and Adobe for a few hours (every expletive under the sun plus a few creative ones), I got little else done.  I also needed to work on the yard, one of those tasks that I deem as the bane of my existence.  Call me nuts but spraying weeds and cutting grass seem to me to be the most pointless activities any busy human being could possibly ever have to do.

At the end of the day, I think I have my two main photos ready to be placed in the templates but I guess we'll see.  I'm hoping to get the CD's ordered within the next week.

Back to the Grind

I've been hard at work on the "Mirror Land" EP at this point since that's the next "monkey on my back" that I need to have removed.  It's been interesting so far because the tracks have transformed quite a bit from what I had even a few months ago.  I will say that learning how to use delays on tracks really was a game changer for me and I can't believe I didn't know to do that sooner.  For UA users, I swear by the Cooper Time Cube plugin and now use it pretty much all over the place.

I've also finally started working on the Defrost Nixon album.  I'm now officially about a month and a half behind on it, which isn't the greatest, mind you, but it is what it is.  Add to it that work has been pretty taxing lately and then I've had more Mohs done at the same time, it's been hard to really focus and move forward.

Speaking of which, my doctor keeps reminding me that I apparently used "the strangest excuse ever" to reschedule one of my Mohs procedures last year.  Now, mind you that pretty much 98% of my Mohs areas are literally on top of my head, and last Labor Day I ended up rescheduling because I realized that one of the procedures was going to fall during my week off for recording and such.  When I record, obviously I need to use headphones, and if I have this huge bandage and/or sore area on my head, well, it seemed obvious to me that I'd get nothing done.  I therefore thought I did the smart thing and rescheduled but instead was read the riot act.  Well, my doctor still thinks my reasoning was "bizarre".  It doesn't sound unusual to me but I honestly don't know how else to explain it to her.

I've only just begun working on Defrost Nixon but I chose to start from the back, the very last track that I worked on via recording called "Our Satellite's Collide".  I really love this track but I had totally forgotten that I had some completely experimental bits on the recording.  I saw a small group of muted tracks and was like, "hmm...what's this?"  It ended up being a weird morse code like alarm sound on one side while I used a small megaphone on the other to blurt out mission control like commands.  Needless to say, it made me laugh quite a bit.  I didn't mute them again since I thought maybe, just maybe I can find a way to use this.

I also need to work on the artwork for "The Effects of Connection" for the CD's but I simply didn't have the energy to do so this weekend.  That's what happens when two small furry creatures (cats) wake you up at 6:20am on a Sunday.  Ugh.

"The Effects of Connection" Released

I'm happy to say that "The Effects of Connection" EP has indeed been posted for sale on my Bandcamp site.  I'm actually quite pleased with how it came out and I will honestly say that it sounds much better with the additional month's worth of tinkering versus if I had released it the first week of March, as originally planned.  Also, Rare Form Mastering did a great job as always with the mastering on it as well.  You can check it out here:  https://johnathonwilde.bandcamp.com/album/the-effects-of-connection-ep

Full steam ahead on "Mirror Land" of which I've already resumed work on.  I feel like I may have finally gotten a pretty good grip on doing my vocals in mixes; it seems I need 2 de-essers and specifically placed within the chain.  The downside is that it's now thrown everything else off in these mixes so there's a bit more to work on there.  I'm hoping to wrap this EP up at least by the end of the month while also simultaneously starting work (albeit a month late) on Defrost Nixon.

Closing Time is Always Hard

Well, I'm at least not listening to "The Effects of Connection" EP 100 times a night anymore, and thank goodness.  I was about to go completely crazy.  I was frantically trying to track down the "issue" a couple weeks ago and I literally spent every evening upstairs after work listening to the tracks over, and over, and over.  It was quite ridiculous.

Now, the bad news...  I still have not resubmitted the tracks for mastering BUT the plan is to send them tomorrow night.  I did one more minor tweak today which I believe is the last one (fingers and toes crossed, and possibly eyes as well).  I will say, if nothing else, this has been a very good yet difficult learning experience, and I did actually fix every known issue that I can.  Now, there are issues I can't really fix, to be honest, but I'm not going to tell you about those because, well, you probably won't even notice them.

I pretty much knew that I would have to learn how to mix my vocals the hard way since I've primarily been doing instrumental work for so long.  That's the downside of instrumentals, mind you.  It's weird but it is a completely different animal in more ways than one.  In any event, I think I finally figured out what I have to do with my vocals, and along the way learned about 12 other tricks that I can keep in my back pocket.  Learning is good, of course, but I just wish it wasn't so dang painful at times.

I'm actually back to working on "Mirror Land" again, and provided that my vocal techniques hold up, maybe, just maybe this one can get wrapped up in the next two weeks.  One can hope, right?  I wouldn't stake my life on it, mind you, but hope is something I can risk.  And, that's the new for now.  I'll post again hopefully in a couple of days with the masters in hand stating that the songs have finally been posted.

Yet Another One of "Those" Weekends

Believe it or not, I've been fighting with "The Effects of Connection" mixes literally every night since first turning it in for mastering, now about two weeks ago.  It ended up that fixing the issue with the drum track in "Two Step" brought a whole 'nother slew of issues to light, and I've been working on those ever since.  I've now lost count of how many hours I've put into these mixes just since thinking they were "complete".

Having said that, I spent another fairly full day working them today and listening to tests, etc.  I finally got my head around what the actual issue was about two days ago and it didn't end up being at all what I thought it was.  I still can't explain it but it seems to be caused by sibilance, and this is very strange because I didn't think this particular track had any issues in that department.  It ends up that I learned something yet again the very painful way.

I'm hoping to turn in the new mixes either tomorrow night or Tuesday, at the very latest.  I simply have to be done with this, and by now I've exhausted every avenue I can so it's just going to be what it is.  It's one of those deals where I could spend the whole year tinkering with them and it just isn't bloody worth it.

I'm hoping to get back to other mixes tomorrow at long last.  Pretty much everything has been on the back burner since I've been in emergency mode.  Provided no more disasters occur, "The Effects of Connection" EP should finally be released by next weekend.  One can only hope.

I've Got the Mastering Blues

Another busy weekend, still working on the same #$%&'in mixes.  Sigh.  But, alas, I'm uploading new versions right now and I think (keyword = "think") these are the "ones".

Greg, the mastering engineer, actually did a great job with what I gave him on Friday.  He did, however, email me a bit of a WTF email, pointing out some issues in the mixes.  One of the issues I did actually know about but made a rather dumb assumption, basically that it was unfixable, and so I hadn't paid any attention to it last week.  It turns out, though, I had done a boost along the way via EQ and that was why it was so very out of whack now.  Duh.

The other issue I was minorly aware of but had written it off as normal.  Well, folks, it's all a learning process, but of course I hate to waste Greg's time while I'm learning the process.  He's a rather nice guy, though, and patient, so hopefully he won't charge for me for a do over.

Other than that, I did get around to doing a fresh mix on the "Mirror Land" EP which is definitely coming along.  I'd like to say that it should be ready for mastering in 2-3 weeks, depending upon how well I stay upon it.  Once "...Effects..." is officially done, I should be able to give my full attention, no doubt.

I'm going to be very honest; I'm actually amazed that these tracks for "...Effects..." sound as good as they do.  I have a feeling 10 years down the road that I'll look back on this and say, "I have no idea how I made it sound even that good."  Hmph.

Mastering Delay

Just a quick update since I didn't get around to posting this weekend.  I had a choice of going through basically 4 different people for mastering "The Effects of Connection" and I had decided to try someone new, basically since mastering in general is still a bit of a black box and I don't fully understand what I should expect from the process.  I made a choice on a mastering engineer based only on word of mouth from someone that I don't know/have never met, but upon reaching out to the engineer himself, he seemed like a good fit theoretically and he was more or less local.

I delivered the mixes maybe 2 weeks ago?  I've lost count, sorry.  In any event, the first crack at it was pretty horrendous to me and also raised a couple red flags.  Now, I'm not going to make any judgements about his actual work or experience because like I said above the whole process is still a bit of a black box in my viewpoint.  And so, I made some adjustments to the mixes and we did a round 2.  It was better but after listening to it over the weekend, coupled with a few details about the master itself that seemed just odd to me, I decided to pull the plug and instead book a session with the guy/company that I previously had gone through.

Mastering engineer #1 was okay with that but ended up taking a third crack at the mixes just for the hell of it.  This time around it was pretty good but there were still minor things that seemed alarming, not to mention items that I couldn't quite get my head around, such as why certain elements of the mix were being blown out of proportion.  On top of it, I also couldn't wrap my head around how I could possibly plan in my mix for these things since they sound fine in my version, and it's only the mastered version that has the issue.  It more or less made me question both his process and gear, to be honest.

Long story short, I have a session booked with my usual engineer for this Friday.  I decided to make a few tweaks in the mixes, simply based on the previous rounds and because I had the time and ability to do so, but that's pretty much where we're at.  I believe I'll have round one of the masters back late on Friday so we'll see if this take flies.  If so, the EP will be posted on Bandcamp this weekend.

In the meantime, I worked on the artwork piece and literally threw something together basically from nothing.  It still needs more work but the core concept is there, at least enough to post to Bandcamp if the release comes out this weekend.

That's the news on this front!  I'll post an update sometime this coming weekend.

Done?!

I didn't get around to writing an update last weekend.  I was hoping to have "The Effects of Connection" EP wrapped up, and due to more minor issues with levels going in the red, I had to reset the entire song again which ends up throwing everything off.  I have definitely learned that I need to really set levels WAY earlier in the process.  You can't necessarily prevent some adjustment when you're finishing up a mix but you shouldn't have to move it anywhere near to the level I had to.  Because of the multiple moves in levels and just how far it moved, it ended up throwing off the mix multiple times, so it was like getting the mix finished, then purposely ruining it, and then doing it all over again...x3.  It was both a bit annoying and frustrating for me.

Regardless, the EP was not sent off last Monday as originally planned, and I spent all week, literally every night, making minor tweaks, etc.  The good news it that what I have now is actually noticeably improved since I manually went in and fixed any snare hits that were bothersome to me, amongst other items.  This helped the mix tremendously, along with a bunch of other small fine tuning details.

I've spent this weekend doing the finalization and I'm fairly certain it'll be sent off for mastering either tomorrow night or Tuesday.  I have just a couple minor tidbit questions that I need to answer first and then it's good to go.  I just did my headphone listen and was fairly pleased.  Finishing a mix is not something I'm super familiar with, as you know, since finishing anything has not been my specialty over the years.  I'm doing my best to keep notes, etc., with the hopes of speeding up the process in the future.  I'll hopefully get a lot of practice this year in general.

The downside is that I have yet to actually start on the artwork since I've been still so focused on the mix.  I'm probably going to start dabbling with the photos tonight and will probably do it little by little during the week, provided I'm up to it.  I would have done more already but there have been way too many tasks at home to attend to, and quite frankly work has been quite hellish lately.  This all catches up to me in a bad fashion and I've been honestly in a fairly bad mood lately due to it all.  How I manage to hold it together at all sometimes kind of amazes me.

It's now February 25th and I'm supposed to start on Defrost Nixon next weekend.  Sigh.  Well, I knew things wouldn't exactly go as planned so I'm not terribly shocked.  "Mirror Land" is not ready to be sent for mastering yet so there's quite a bit to do there, and "...Fish!" certainly isn't wrapped up either.  I guess I'll just do the best I can while also beginning on Defrost Nixon.  It's going to be a very busy three months, let me tell ya.  Hopefully, I survive.

Releases on the Way

This post is a bit late in its arrival since things have been continuously hectic around here.  I swear, between working full time and trying to do music in the evenings and weekends, amongst other things, it feels like I rarely get an opportunity to just sit down and breathe.

In any event, I did send off the "As Evening Brings Tears" video edit version a little over a week ago.  The first version I got back was quite low in volume, even lower than the original version, so I rejected it and had to wait for the redo.  I just got that back on Monday and didn't have an opportunity to go over it until last night.  The overall volume is much better and I'm actually pretty pleased with the mix overall.  I do think, however, that I overdid it a bit on the kick volume, which is really apparent when the track starts, and I kind of wish I had fixed that before hitting submit.  Since this is primarily going on YouTube, though, I'm not going to spend the time or the money redoing it for I think it's pretty good overall, especially since it'll be played primarily through crappy computer speakers.  Mixing is a learning process, as I keep saying over and over, and therefore I just learned yet another tidbit.

I also have "The Effects of Connection" EP basically ready to go.  I'm still doing a couple manual de-esses here and there, and also some very minor little tweaks, but the mixes of both tracks are basically ready to go.  I'm hoping to send these tracks off for mastering no later than next Monday.  This means that I'll be cranking on the artwork for it this weekend of which I fortunately have a few ideas already cooking.

The "Mirror Land" EP shouldn't be far behind and might be submitted for mastering about a week later.  That artwork is more or less already put together and has been sitting around dormant for about 4+ years.  I simply need to make a couple tweaks and then it should be good to go.

I think I might be running a bit behind on the "...Fish" mixes but I don't think it'll really interfere with my starting on the Defrost Nixon album around March 1st.  Again, I'm trying my best to stay on target this year so that I can get as much done as possible.  Defrost Nixon is really the big variable and I don't know if allotting only 3 months is going to be adequate but I guess I'll find out.

That's the news from over here.  I'm hoping to get the "As Evening Brings Tears" video posted on YouTube within the next 2 weeks.

Success

I didn't have a great weekend overall but it fortunately left me with pretty good news.  The "As Evening Bring Tears" video edit version is going off for mastering today, and I'd expect it to be returned to me probably by the end of the week.  I would imagine the video itself will be available on YouTube within about 2 weeks.  I'll certainly make that known here once it's been posted.

Also, "The Effects of Connection" EP is also done and will hopefully be sent off for mastering at the end of this week, or the weekend at the latest.  The guy who's going to do the mastering seems like he's having a slow period so I'd expect it to be turned around super fast.  I'd think that the tracks will be available on Bandcamp within the next 2 weeks as well.

The really good news, though, is that the "Mirror Land" EP is finally done at very long last.  Talk about getting a monkey off my back...my god.  I have been struggling with this EP for a decade...no joke.  It's gone through multiple mix changes, more than I count (although nowhere near TFTO), and the overall result is pretty positive.  I think I chose wisely walking away from it at the end of 2023, only to return to it with new tools and techniques in hand, and fresh ears, and managed to knock this out in about 2 weeks.  To say that I'm patting myself on the back for it is putting it mildly.  Now, when mixes are "done" that means that there's still a lot of listening, mild changes, etc., so it'll be some time before that one is actually available (maybe a month?), but the core mix is now really solid and sounding pretty good.

Full steam ahead back to the "...Fish!" mixes, of which I put aside for the past 2 weeks in order to get these EP's done.  I still feel that I'm on track to have the "...Fish!" mixes tightened up by the end of the month so I'm actually on schedule, quite possibly for the first time ever.  Let's hope this continues.

Minor Update

Just a quick minor update on some going's on's...  First up, I have removed "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" from being visible on my Bandcamp page.  From my understanding, even though I purchased download licenses for the song, it's not able to be "streamed" on the Bandcamp page proper without a separate "performance" license which apparently you can no longer purchase from the various "cover song" licensing sites at a reasonable rate.  Therefore, it just seemed best to make the song unavailable in that medium.  The song is still included in the download version of the album as well as the CD...the downside is that one can't necessarily tell that without reading the small blurbs on the page.  This is so far the only way I've found to be able to restrict a song from streaming on Bandcamp.

I'm now really leaning towards not doing any more cover song versions, mainly because it's such a hassle and has a sometimes semi costly price tag, with the real downer being that the majority of the cost doesn't go to the artist but instead to the website that's the middle man (go figure).  The downside is that I already have a ton of time invested in covers such as  "Two Step" and the whole "It's Raining Elvis Fish!" album so there's no turning back now.  I think I'll be using the same method as mentioned above for "The Effects of Connection" EP, where "Two Step" will not be streamable but will be included in both the download and CD versions.  As for "...Fish!", I'm not sure how I'm going to do that one as of yet.  I was wondering if I could simply have no tracks be streamable and only offer CD's and downloads.  I did a test and it seems like it might be possible but I can't say for sure without literally publishing the album to the site.  It's all very curious.  Provided that works, though, that'll most likely be my approach.

This week I'm prepping not only "As Evening Brings Tears" (the video edit version) but also "The Effects of Connection" and "Two Step" for mastering.  "...Evening..." sounds really great but I decided to tweak the bass just a tad bit more, nothing that'll take more than another pass at the most.  "...Effects..." sounded boomy when I revisited it last night so I'm going to make some minor mod's on that one before moving forward.  Again, I fully expect all three songs to go off for mastering early next week, at the latest.  I will be placing the shortened edited version of "As Evening Brings Tears" on Bandcamp as soon as I get it back and I'd imagine that "The Effects of Connection" EP will be visible on the site in the  next couple of weeks.

My focus is now on getting the "Mirror Land" tracks fully done and then I'm going to start on artwork for these releases as well as prepping the drums for Defrost Nixon.  The "...Fish" mix modifications will probably continue for a little while but there's nothing too heavy left to do.  I'll be working on the track order as soon as this weekend.  At this point, I fully intend to meet my mix deadline of the end of February.

I'm also investigating KickStarter and/or GoFundMe campaigns.  The former seems a bit intense for just me to handle on my own, to be honest, but I might dabble in it...who knows.

Target

I had another pretty good weekend of mixing and such.  I did another revision of "Only With You", one of the tracks that's been a real thorn in my side for months/years from the "Mirror Land" EP, and I'm proud to say that I marked it as "done" last night.  Wow.  I can't tell you how good that feels.

The other two tracks from the EP are coming along, and it's pretty impressive considering this time around I'm only on pass number 3 at the moment.  I fully expect both of them to be done within the next two weeks, and no, that's not just optimism (yes, pun intended...one of the songs is actually called "Optimism").

The "...Fish!" mixes are coming along as well and I'm really doing nothing more than nitpicky and finishing touch sort of items at this point.  I also added just a couple more bits of recording but I think I'm pretty done with all of that, my last being an organ part on "Creeped Out" that seems like it worked fairly well.  I'm trying very hard to keep that song, one of the newer ones that I've recorded, as a simple 4 piece track without a ton of overdubs which would be something new for me.

I also finally started the finalization process for the "As Evening Brings Tears" video edit version.  I'm hoping to submit it for mastering this week and then I'll hand it over to my friend who did the video for it.  I'd like to think that maybe it'll be on YouTube by mid February.

As of right now, I'm managing to keep on schedule and might even be slightly ahead of schedule (don't say that too loud, of course).  I've been doing a lot of planning for this year and we'll see how it goes.  I also reached out to MWP about working on that new EP together, and he's currently trying to raise some money for moving his large archival vinyl collection from Penzance to Porto, Portugal.  All in all, I'm trying to maintain high hopes and shooting for the proverbial stars, and so far the key to that seems be simply staying on target.

What Do You Actually Need to Make a Decent Home Recording?

I was thinking about this subject just the other day.  I remember when I first really started dabbling in recording asking this question all the time:  "What exactly do I NEED to make a decent sounding recording?!"  This question kept coming up over and over, even after doing recordings, especially when things didn't sound quite right, and so on.  The sad part was that it was very hard to ever get a straight answer to this question so I'll try and do just that, of course merely from my perspective.

First and foremost, if you're a guitarist, the question inevitably always comes up of just how many guitars you need.  Actually, to be honest, the question is normally the opposite:  "Do you really need all those guitars?!", usually said in a semi snobbish tone.  So, here's the truth...no, you (I) don't.  However, the more you have at your disposal, the better.  There's the truth.

So, what guitars do you actually need?!  It depends.  Now, I've just opened that lovely can of worms..."it depends".  When I first started getting really serious about mixing, and I did countless searches about how to do X and Y in mixes, and so on, I would always grow frustrated beyond belief because everyone would answer, "it depends".  It was so incredibly annoying that I would frequently remark about it.  It felt like no one wanted to share the secret.  And yet, years later, I will tell you that they weren't lying...it literally "depends", whether you're talking guitars, mixing, song writing, and so on.  Yes, it does actually depend.

With guitars, it depends completely on what you're doing.  If you're like me, kind of all over the board where you record sometimes rock, sometimes something more jazzy, or you enjoy putting in various interludes with instruments that sound different from what you've already recorded, then the more the better when it comes to guitars/instruments.  In this instance, you'll need at least a 6 string acoustic, a 12 string acoustic, a 6 string electric, maybe a 12 string electric (see?  It depends...do you like the Byrds or Tom Petty?), and most likely a nylon string acoustic.  That's 4-5 at a bare minimum.  Can you get by with less?  Absolutely, but I'd say 2 at a bare minimum, being a good quality acoustic and an electric.  I personally couldn't imagine anything less but maybe that's just me.

Then, we get into electric guitar sounds.  If you can ONLY have one electric guitar, I pretty much always say buy an American made Fender Stratocaster.  Hands down, they are the most versatile guitar out there because you can record most things with them AND they come with a tremolo so you'll already have that in your back pocket as well.  Strat's have a clean sound unlike any guitar I've ever heard, and there's a reason why they've been so very popular for decades, especially in the 80's.  Almost every time you hear that certain crystal like clean sound, it's a Strat...I almost guarantee you.  They also have probably the best harder rock sound as well when distortion/overdrive is applied, hence why they're such valuable instruments.  I was vehemently opposed to Strats for well over a decade, mainly out of sheer stupidity.  I bought a Japanese model first and hated it; it felt clunky, the sound wasn't great, it seemed way too heavy, and didn't stay in tune.  Plus, everybody played Strats so I just learned to despise them.  When I finally broke down and bought an American made Strat in the 2000's, I felt like the biggest fool in the world when I realized just how much I could get out of it versus, say, my 6 string Rickenbackers.  Seriously, the Strat is your goto for far too many things to mention.  It is frequently called my "utility" guitar and I reach for it constantly.  Do you have to buy an American made Strat?  No, and I will say the Mexican made models are actually quite good.  Why I do suggest spending the extra money then?  If you think you're going to stay into writing/recording/playing music, just make the investment now and keep it for life since they may only get more expensive and are likely to go up in value.

If you have the luxury of having multiple electrics, then my best advice is to branch out; do not do what I used to do, such as buying 3 Rickenbacker 360's in different colors.  Seriously.  If only I could go back in time and tell myself...  I highly recommend thinking diversity of sound when buying multiple electrics since it really pays off when recording.

Best electrics then?  I highly recommend Fender Strats, Fender Telecasters, Gibson Les Paul's or Les Paul Specials (one of the best bargains in the world...no need to reach for the Custom Shop model, imo), Gibson 335's (wonderfully diverse instrument for rock/blues/jazz), and of course Rickenbackers, of which get maybe too much credit in the 12 string realm and not enough in the 6 string realm (I personally love the hard edged sound of a Rick 6 string with Hi Gains via a decent amount of distortion or overdrive).  A thing about Rick's...they're one of the harder guitars to play since their necks are fairly small, cramped, and bulbous.  My first quality electric was a Rick 6 string and it seriously made getting better at guitar playing much harder for me.  It was only years later that I realized how much easier a Gibson or Fender is to play, and honestly I rarely reach for the Rick's these days except when I want a certain sound.

For acoustics, I'm a broken record...you simply cannot beat Breedlove Master Class models made pre 2013, before Bedell bought the company (and <choke> ruined it), and they're not even that expensive on the used market.  I cannot tell you how many times someone has asked me how I get that wonderful acoustic sound in a recording and I always say the same thing...it's not me, it's the guitar.  If the standard concert size Breedlove acoustic feels too small (btw, always opt for the 20 series, as in the C20 rather than the C10, imo), then try to get your hands on an auditorium or A model.  They're harder to find but quite glorious.  I have an A25 that I have detuned slightly and, every time I strum it, it knocks my socks off in regards to how amazing it sounds.  Seriously, I can't say enough about Breedloves.  I also have a Taylor 716 and it literally feels like a chunk of wood next to my Breed's.  Those older Breedloves are the biggest secret in acoustic guitars, in my opinion, and those of us who are privy to the info won't settle for anything else (maybe we'll talk tone woods some other time).

If you're super lucky and can get your hands on even more instruments, Baritone guitars are quite interesting, or again buy an extra acoustic and detune it.  The possibilities are endless in that realm.  Someone once wrote that when they run out of ideas for writing songs, they reach for a detuned guitar and it's like they've never played the instrument before.  I've tried this myself...it really does work.  If you're new to guitar, though, I don't recommend venturing down these pathways that early on.  There's always time for this later.

Effects?  One of the first ones I ever bought was an Ebow and I still swear by them.  To me, it's a must.  I also LOVE volume pedals but I'm a big 70's prog rock fan, and you just can't not have one, unless you both prefer and are really good at using your finger on the volume knob of a guitar.  To me, the bigger and more gas pedal feeling the volume pedal, the better, and I personally love the Ernie Ball pedals.  I also swear by the Fulltone OCD Overdrive pedal and the Boss Blues Driver for lighter tones, two wonderful pedals that you'll always find some use for.  Delay is a must and I really love the Dispatch Master from Earthquaker, and it's a "you can't find a bad sound" sort of pedal.  Another must for me at least is the Boss Octave pedal, or any octave, really.  It's a sound that I simply adore, much thanks to Ali Farka Toure's "Niafunke" album (beyond great album, btw).

Next up, bass...  If you're a guitar player at any level, you can easily pull off bass, provided you're just looking for your average Adam Clayton style rock bass line.  I personally love a Fender American PBass but again the Mexican made models are quite good so you can getaway pretty cheaply, especially if it's not your main instrument.  Recording direct has been kinder to me personally, and of course it's quieter, so the overhead and price tag is very low; just grab a DI box and maybe a pedal that's made for direct recording.  I suggest always recording the pedal and direct signal so you have both to choose from later on and the DI box should make this super simple.  If you're not a guitar player, there is software out there such as EZBass from Toontrack which I've heard good things about but I've never personally used it.  One last option is to simply use keyboard tracks for your bass tones, something I use quite often depending upon the song.  It just depends.

So, what about recording?  You need some sort of interface with decent inputs and converters.  In this day and age, I personally don't think that having something like ProTools and, say, a UA Apollo is completely out of reach, and even if it's a bit more than you want to spend, it's worth it.  There are also many cheaper programs like ProTools out there that you can get for a fraction of the price.  As for interfaces, don't fall for the idea that you need 8 preamps since most of us really never use more than 2 at a time.  Pair this with something as small as a Mac Mini and you're quickly in business.

You do NEED at least one good condenser microphone.  I started out with an AT 4050; it took me probably 2-3 years to pay that off back in the mid 90's.  It changed the game for me, though, and recording an acoustic with that versus, say, a Shure SM57, was night and day.  Grab at least one good condenser and don't worry about "matched pairs" or anything like that unless it's specifically something that you need for your situation.  Do you need or should you just shoot for the stars and buy something like a Neumann U87ai?  As much as I really like the microphone, the answer is no unless you really have the budget for it.  Will it improve your sound?  Absolutely, but will it improve your sound, say, 8x over the AT 4050?  No.  That's the question I both recommend and always ask myself before buying something:  is this really X times better sounding than what I might already have?  I say X times because one might be X times more expensive than the other but rarely does that number match how many times better it'll sound.

A lot of people swear by outboard preamps, although the trend has been leaning lately more towards plugin's.  I do prefer using outboard preamps but you don't need to spend 5k on them.  In fact, buy a Great River ME-1NV for about $900 and you'll be ecstatic and it'll be with you for life.  If the majority of what you record is a single source at a time, well, you only need the one preamp so save your money versus buying multiples.  Again, it depends.

So, what else?  If you're a guitarist, you do need a good amp.  Amps do need to be at a certain minimum volume to sound their best, something I've learned the hard way, so having a way to crank it up, per se, without disturbing your neighbors or spouses or children (or pets) is something I highly recommend.  I can't say enough about a 1 watt amp head; wow.  The Benson Vinny is downright amazing but there are many 1 watt amps out there these days.  Simply connect it to a 10 or 12 inch speaker cabinet and you're all set, and yes...1 watt is actually enough to be way too loud, believe it or not.

For mic'ing guitar cabinets, I still prefer the condensers.  To my ears, they just sound the most natural.  SM57's are a great choice, though, if that's what your budget allows (although you should already have a condenser at your disposal if you're following along).  Some people love Ribbon mic's...my experience has been mixed.  Personally, I don't think I could recommend them but perhaps it's just the kind of music I'm doing.  They carry a pretty hefty price tag and don't seem to deliver but that's just my personal opinion.  If you do opt for a Ribbon mic, expect the overall sound to be darker, and many people balance that with a paired SM57 or condenser.

Believe it or not, that's about all you need but...well, it depends.  You might want some drum software if you don't know a good drummer and/or have a way to record them.  EZDrummer is a great product although sometimes a bit frustrating to manipulate the actual MIDI.  The sound quality is top notch, though, and learning to use it at a minimum level is fairly painless.  It's also fairly reasonable in price.

You'll also want some sort of keyboard/piano, or simply software and a controller.  The latter is usually the better approach if you're not an actual keyboard player (like myself).  Some recording software comes preloaded with keyboard sounds, such as ProTools, so you may only need to buy a controller to harness that power at your fingertips.

Everything else is gravy, my friends, and of course the more you have at your disposal the better...but you can make an amazing recording and album with actually very little.  Spend the money on good quality where it counts:  quality instruments, a quality interface with decent preamps, or a decent preamp or two, and don't forget good quality cables.  Oh, and a real tuner...PLEASE...buy a tuner.  Nothing makes me cringe more than hearing someone's part where they're terribly out of tune.

I don't know if this terribly long post will help anyone out there but hopefully it does.  If you have any questions, feel free to email me directly.