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...
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