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.