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.
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