Yet Another (Another)...

Another week off has come to a close.  I must say that I feel really good about the "Lost Weekend" remix and it truly went very well this week.  I'm not done, mind you, but all the preliminary work IS done and now it's just a matter of listening to it repetitively and making any necessary revisions.

A lot of memories have come up for me this week when working on this album.  I have a feeling I'll be writing quite a bit about it as the project progresses.  That was a really interesting part of my life, 1997 - 2000, and it's kind of amazing to see how long ago that was now because it only feels like maybe a decade ago to me personally.

I'm feeling really good about my newest template and mixing plan overall as well, and I'd dare say that it's working.  Hell knows, it's been a very long time in the making.  Now, to be honest, most albums aren't quite as easy to mix as this one but still.  I truly feel like I turned a page and have put my lessons learned to good use.  I kind of feel like I finally graduated the "course" and earned my diploma.

I guess I need to start thinking about the artwork for the release.  I'm certainly going to do something similar to the original album cover but I think the booklet and/or tray card will be completely different since I was never super pleased with my designs from back then.  I've found working on album artwork to be much more satisfying over the past 5 years so I'm not too terribly stressed about it but I do want to start thinking about a plan.

Also, I've been pondering heavily what work I'd like to get done for the rest of the year and then also what I'm putting on the docket for 2026.  It's quite a list, let me tell ya, and it should be interesting.

It's Happening

Well, it's finally happening...the long planned remix of the "Lost Weekend" album.  Wow.  I'm actually really excited about it, whereas usually the idea of remixing past work might make one's eyes glaze over.

To make it even more exciting, it's actually going quite well.  I'm kind of using this remix as a test to use my "lessons learned" literally from this entire year so far and the past 2-3.  I've tweaked (simplified, really) my mixing process a bit with this one, thinking this will be my new way of doing things going forward, and so far it seems to be working quite well.  I'm quite excited to see (hear) the outcome.

I started working on this remix project about 5+ years ago.  The first thing I had to do was painstakingly go through each track and fix the anomalies that I always disliked, basically things that I wasn't able to fix back in 1999 because I was working with digital ADAT tape.  Now that pretty much all audio is being done via computers and/or has been converted, with extensive GUI based editing, there were tons of items that I wanted to fix.  I spent an enormous amount of hours on the song "Pleasure Oasis", for example, just trying to get the singing on key and more full.

Once I completed that editing, I actually started the remix back in 2022, and I promptly stopped working on it because I wasn't liking the results.  It was partially what prompted me to do the deep dive on mixing that I've been doing now for the past 3 years.  Since I feel like I finally got where I wanted to be, hence it was time to pick this up again, and honestly I'm really glad that I stopped 3 years ago because I would have been rather upset with the results.  At the time, it felt like I was trying to push a square peg in a round hole...and apparently I was because I'm basically whipping these songs into shape all in about 2 hours per song rather than the countless hours I was doing back then.

It's funny because this really isn't a "remix"; it's kind of a first mix.  I say that because I realized that I didn't really "mix" this album the first time around, I simply worked on leveling and panning...nothing else...which is partially why it sounded quite shabby.  It'll be interesting to see what this sounds like given the full treatment.

As previously reported, I'm also finally slowing my pace, which was absolutely necessary, because I have put in more hours on mixing in the past 2-3 years than anyone could possibly imagine coupled with working a full time highly intensive day job.  It's nice to finally not feel so pressured and under the gun.  Hell, I'm even able to relax a bit during this week off and watch a bit of tennis.

I think the remainder of this year is going to be quite fascinating because I think what's going to happen is that I'm going to be releasing a new album/EP every month.  I now have multiple projects all in that "hardening" phase and so it's just a matter of closing each one out, one by one.  It's rather exciting, to me at least.  I'm also now able to, for the first time in probably 3 years, think about being creative again and not only worrying about engineering.  This is also a welcome mind switch.

I can't say for sure but I think the release order will be along the lines of the following:  the "Mirror Land" EP, the "Petty Cash" EP remix, the Defrost Nixon album, the "Acoustic 3 Song Sampler" remix, the "Lost Weekend" remix, the "It's Raining Elvis Fish!" redux/remix album, and then the "Yet I Tried for You" EP.  Yes, I actually believe all of this will be released by the end of the year...no joke.  The one that's been held up is the "Wrecking Ball" album but that'll be my main focus for literal mixing between now and EOY so I predict that will ready to be released hopefully early next year.  I'm actually already planning my release schedule for next year and any physical recording I intend to do for the remainder of 2025.

Next up on my "things to do" list, I'll start focusing on videos for select songs.  I haven't been able to spend the time on that as much as I would have liked but I feel pretty comfortable in that realm already, at least enough to get started and be productive.  It has been a really long time since I released something but I think that's all about to change dramatically.

Thank Heavens...

I think I've finally calmed down thankfully since I couldn't handle much more panic a few weeks ago.  I thought I was finally done with the "Mirror Land" EP on June 25th and then I noticed something glaringly wrong with it that sent me down a path, spiraling out of control, deep diving, etc.  This was also my third time thinking I was done with the EP which only added to my overall panic in general.

Around July 1st, after having already spent countless hours digging, trying endless things, researching, and, well, panicking, I had another one of those moments where I kind of silently said to myself, "you know, self...maybe you just don't have the ability to successfully mix vocals".  I think I needed to have that discussion so that I could actually then do a 180 degree turn, brush it off, and instead just dig a bit deeper, get my attitude in check (I was near a nervous breakdown at the time, trust me), and then reset my own internal deadlines for everything.  Once I did that, things started to calm, and in all honesty I've pretty much always done my worst work when I'm super panicky so calming is absolutely necessary.

It's now August.  Yeah, sure, I'm late again, not that it matters really because it's not like I'm turning this release into a record company or anything like that, it's just my own personal "deadline", if you will, that I'm once again late on.  However, I think I'm finally through it...and I'm thinking I might finally be basking in the light at the end of the tunnel.

To be very frank, the WHOLE idea for all of this was to mix my own work due to being such a prolific writer.  Now, I had zero idea what apple I was biting into 2 decades ago, and it wasn't until I kept failing miserably over and over that I started to comprehend the depths from which I'd have to dig.  I've come a very long way over the past 3-5 years and I dare say that I'm pretty proud of my achievements; I just wish I had tried to climb and conquer this mountain about 20 years ago.  I also wish I had chosen better technology along the way.

Putting that aside, "Mirror Land" is once again "done" but is in the hardening stage.  I think it's mission accomplished because the whole goal for 2025 was to end up at EOY to be pretty proficient at mixing but I knew going into it that it was going to be terribly painful...and it certainly has been.  There may have even been a stray tear here and there, that's the level of pain we're talking.  Vocals especially have been a disaster for me up until now.

Last night, though, I started revisiting my in progress mixes for the "...Fish" album.  With song #1, I hit play, listened to where I left off back in May, and quite frankly thought it sounded pretty awful.  I went to work, started reworking the vocals, then some of the music, etc., and within 45 minutes I couldn't believe the difference.  Wow.  I really have come a long way even since earlier this year.  That's progress.

With vocals, I have done such a deep dive that it's nearly ridiculous.  Where I started 2025 and where I am now is a million miles away.  What was the real issue?  Self induced, and that's what hurts the most, but with something like mixing that is not that unusual, in my experience at least.  The beauty about ProTools and mixing in general is that it offers you a world of options at your fingertips; the horror is that if you really don't know where to start, you can really box yourself into a corner and not find your way out for eons.  It's just the constant tinkering, listening, researching, comparing, etc., that'll help you get out of that corner but you do need a lot of stamina.  It's certainly not for the faint of heart.

I'm not going to say that I'm now "Mr. Mixing Engineer" or anything but I DO feel that I'm on the road to a really good place, meaning taking probably a day per mix versus, well, months.  As I always say, it's not necessarily how smart you are but knowing the "tricks"...and there are a hell of a lot 'em with this sort of thing.  It is August so half the year is gone but I still have 3 full albums to finish by year's end.  My hope is that by the time I work through all of this that I'll be exactly where I want to be at long last.  Fingers crossed and one can only hope.

Damn Plugin's

Today's minor blurb is about using new plugin's and, well, finding the right time to actually use them.  I, probably like everyone, have fallen into the awful trap of researching some audio issue online and then finding a slew of supposed "expert" YouTube videos about how to handle some issue, etc. (even though the videos are most likely from goons that know about as much as I do but simply speak in an authoritative manner), and then taking some plunge into using or buying a new plugin.  I'll just admit up front that I've fallen into this trap multiple times and it almost always gets me into trouble.

I'm actually currently digging my way out of one of these very traps, basically due to purchasing the Fab Filter Pro-MB plugin and throwing it into a bunch of mixes a bit too blindly.  Now, to be clear, I'm not picking on the plugin whatsoever...I'm the issue here.  I can tell you first hand that the plugin is a super valuable tool; I can also tell you firsthand that if it's not used well it can cause pure havoc on your mix without even realizing it.

So, what I've found is that I have been training myself when to simply say "no, not right now" versus thinking I need to play around with something immediately.  If it isn't terribly obvious, working through final mixdown of a song or project is probably not the right time.  Having said that, it's not always easy to say "no", though, and I'm always stumbling upon videos that make some recommendation that's supposedly "mind blowing" but I simply try to save the link with the intent of looking at it later if I'm in the middle of something crucial.  If I don't resist, there's usually a bit of pain.

In true audio engineering form, though, the opposite can also be said, and that is if you feel the mix has an issue and it simply needs to be addressed, well, take a deep breath and prepare for delays because otherwise you're going to lose sleep over NOT addressing it if you push forward.  This is also a lesson I've learned the hard way.  So, yes, some issues do need to be researched and require the patience to work through regardless of what delay they might cause, that is if you're trying to get the best result available to you.

Balancing these issues I think is the real trick and I'll openly admit that I'm still not the greatest at it.  I think when mixing, especially if it's taking a rather large amount of time to get it done, we just want to finish it and move on.  Ah, but can you live with the results?  Well, that's another story, and that's usually what I ask myself in a very serious manner.

I guess I honestly should always write at the top of these posts or this blog in general that nothing I ever write here is for the actual pro audio engineering world.  This is more for those people like myself who have figured out that the only way they're going to get their material out there is by taking the plunge and attempting to learn at least some of this on their own.  And, oh what a plunge it is...my goodness.  Prepare to take in quite a few gulps of water as you learn to dive!

Quiet, Not Quiet

It probably seems like I've been quiet for nearly a month.  Well, it's been anything but quiet over here, unfortunately.  Honestly, there's been too much going on and unfortunately a lot of its been drama based.

I'll spare the sob story of what I've been working on, mind you, but needless to say I've had yet another really great deep dive into vocal processing.  Wow.  Who knew vocals could be so dang tough?!  I mean, there are inherent reasons why I'm dealing with these issues, mind you, but just coming up with a strong overall vocal strategy going forward has been a bit of a dauting task.

Rather than going over the same ol' same ol', I'll just report this:  the Defrost Nixon mixes continue to evolve.  At this point, I think have 2-3 songs that I could almost say are "done", and then perhaps all of side 1, with a few minor exceptions, is slowly approaching a more complete phase.  Side 2, well, that one still needs work and I'll be fighting with it more this week, when I have time, that is.  Time has actually been a major problem over the past month, hence the ongoing delays.

On the horizon, my annual Labor Day week off is starting to loom and so I need to plan just exactly what I intend to accomplish during that time period.  The "Lost Weekend" remix was the original plan and does remain on the docket, however I believe I've made the choice to throw in recording 2 new acoustic based songs, literally brand new material that has popped up recently without trying.

It's strange because I've hit a point in music and guitar where I can literally not practice at all and still be pretty good.  Wow.  I never thought this would happen...ever.  Even stranger, it seems like each time I DO pick up a guitar, I end up writing a new song.  Not a bad place to be, mind you...

I also was toying around with yet another alternate tuning yesterday that I stumbled upon.  I'm growing quite fond of alternate tunings but there's of course one major downfall to them...it makes it really confusing to keep in your head what tuning you're in, and therefore you have that many more variations that you have to memorize.  Needless to say it'll probably be awhile before I pick up an alternate tuned guitar and play as if I know what I'm actually doing because you inevitably forget and start trying to play in standard tuning which, well, doesn't work :)

I may also have written the basis for a new piano song.  Yeah, it's been strange.  Maybe being stuck in this ridiculously long engineering stage has had some benefit to my writing?  Perhaps.  I have written about 7-8 songs in the past 3 months and without trying.  Thank goodness for handheld recorders (seriously, a must!).

Facing the Facts

I'm working on my "final" round of "Mirror Land" mixes and it's filled with mixed emotions.  My initial feeling is total relief that it's finally going to have a period after it, done, complete-o, etc.  The second emotion I have is similar to losing an old friend, one that's been hanging around for quite awhile that's hard to say goodbye to.  Third, whereas I'm pleased with the overall result, it's still not "perfect" even after all of this time.  Hmm.

The "Mirror Land" EP ended up being my training ground, the EP where I basically tried to kick things up a few notches, learn some new tricks, and so on.  The number of iterations that I've done on this is literally absurd and I won't even share the actual number apart from saying that it's greater than 100 mixes per song.  I could probably tinker with these for the rest of my life but why bother?  Also, I finally reached the point where I think everything that I can make better in the mix is done and now I'm starting to scrutinize the actual recording more, which is never a good road to go down this far along in the process.  No, it's much better to just cut and run and I learned that a long time ago, although you wouldn't know it from the number of iterations on this one.

I'm thinking I'll be submitting these for mastering at the end of this week.  I'm not sure how backed up the mastering engineer is so it could still be another 2 weeks before the release.  Obviously, I have multiple projects being juggled so I have no fear of being bored in the meantime.

Once this is completely wrapped up, the challenge now moves onto a new plateau, the one where I need to figure out how to do all of this in a rather "quick" method.  The Defrost Nixon album is the first to go through this test and I guess we'll know how well this plays out fairly soon since that album is supposed to be released in about 2 months.

In the meantime, I decided to face the facts which seem incredibly daunting to me.  I wrote down yesterday all the releases that I would like to make.  In case you're not aware, I think I'm a bit of an anomaly, not that I'm the only person who probably has a bit of this situation but I do think it's unusual and I would think most people aren't as far along as I am.  I started writing "albums" pretty much from the get go, back in 1990, and not having a good method of recording them back then nor the cash to go to a studio (or any support whatsoever), rather than getting discouraged, I just kept writing album after album.  In writing everything down yesterday, I have 17 original music albums to my credit...and only 2 to this date have been released.  At the end of this year, I should have a total of 4...so, um, 13 to go, if I'm to catch up.  Yeah, exactly.

Most people would have given up by now.  Hell, most people would have given up after album number 3, but alas I'm a bit different.  This all made me stop and think a bit, and let's also keep in mind that I'm not including all these EP's for those aren't complete "albums".  In short, I have a sh*t load of material, more than anyone I know and probably more than many professional musicians/writers.

Considering my age and all, I think the only way to attack this is to try and release about 4 albums per year.  Now, to be fair, some of these albums are half to 70% recorded already (luckily) but at least 7 of them haven't even been started.  Recording, mixing, and releasing 4 albums per year while working full time sounds pretty ridiculous, no?  I think the truth of the matter is that I'll absolutely have to share the mixing love with someone else or I'll never get through this, and/or I'll drop trying.  So, ironically, after tons of rounds of trying to learn mixing to a semi decent degree, I guess I'm still going to have to turn some of it over to someone else.

So, what's the plan?  I guess the short version is to pretty much have my entire album backlog available for listening within the next 5 years.  If I can somehow figure out how to do this and not perish from this Earth beforehand, I think I should get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the person that released the most albums ever, no?  I guess we'll see.  It'll be interesting to see where this all goes...hopefully somewhere.

In the meantime, if you're so inclined, please pick up a copy of "Mirror Land" and/or a t-shirt, and maybe get one for a friend or relative as well.  Honestly, any little bit helps in this endless parade of trying.  One thing is for sure and that's that I'm a damn stubborn individual who doesn't like to give up or have material go to waste.

Finally...a Different Kind of Weekend

It's been a long, long road to this point but I was finally able to have a new kind of weekend, one where I wasn't sweating over mixing all day long, especially the same songs repetitively.  Instead, I dabbled in quite a few areas including exploring the overall gist of Final Cut Pro, a new arena I just might be entering fairly soon.  Yeah, I know...like I need MORE to do, right?!

I've obviously always had an interest in video and film in general but audio has been my main focus for longer than I can remember.  I mean, it's been so long did I ever have a different focus?!  Hmm.  Well, I can't be 100% sure.  Still, I think the need for a more regular presence on YouTube and such is quickly going to become a priority so I decided to download the program and start dabbling.  Initially, it didn't seem too terribly frightening, and it occurred to me after a bit of thought that I think audio in general is much more scrutinized than video, or at least simple short videos/music related videos.  This gave me a bit of comfort, to be honest, and made the hill not seem quite as steep.  Honestly, I wouldn't mind learning a bit about video, etc.

I also finally started diving into the artwork that I'm going to need for all these upcoming releases.  The "Mirror Land" artwork has been done for years; no joke, years, a bit to my embarrassment...but at least it's done and just needs some touch up here and there.  Defrost Nixon has not had any artwork ideas and since that album is now looming on the near horizon, I was starting to sweat a bit about that one.  And, then there's also "Wrecking Ball" which I had not been able to get any decent photos for on my own, nor did I get any real promising leads from putting out an SOS to friends on Facebook.  So, the sweat was starting to form there as well.  Needing one album cover is bad enough but two?!  Ugh.

I literally went through 98 pages of stock photos on the Adobe site and picked out about 25 possibilities for the "Wrecking Ball" album.  It took me about 2-3 hours to do this and then I started playing around with mock up's for the album cover.  I'm fairly pleased with my initial designs so my anxiety went down quite a bit.  I don't usually like the idea of using stock photos and such but I think this time I might have to bend unless I just happen to run into some rubble out and about that I think will work.

Even better news, though, I started doing some mock up's for the Defrost Nixon album based on the photo shoot we did ages ago.  I knew I had limited photos to work from and since I'm no longer in MN it would be tricky to add similar photos without getting on a plane, etc.  My initial designs failed to entice me but then I happened upon something that I really liked, from a completely different direction, and I dare say that I may have the front cover mapped out.  I'm now in the "marinating" stage for both album mock up ideas, basically revisiting every day or so to see how I feel about them throughout the week.  I at least no longer feel so under the gun about this.

It was pretty nice to work on something other than the "Mirror Land" mixes this weekend and I'd almost call it refreshing, as strange as that might be to say.  I'll be posting about the EP in the next few days, most likely.  I'm eager to get this one wrapped up finally.  I'll soon be dabbling in merch as well.

Another One Coming to a Close

It has been quite the intense week off and I'd dare say that I haven't relaxed even one bit.  I mean, I haven't been tense, per se, but I certainly haven't taken any actual time off, and for the most part I've been coming out of the music studio around 10pm each night and sometimes starting as early as 10am.

It has been a good and productive week; however, I have only gotten done a fraction of what I was hoping for (sigh).  I've been amazed at how labor intensive these harmonies have been.  I mean, wow.

Doing low harmonies is fairly new for me.  I don't exactly know why but in the past I always did high harmonies on everything but since my voice has a hard time with that these days I decided it was time to move in the opposite direction.  It's amazing the difference in sound and tone.  Having said that, though, I've been pretty pleased with the results but it's simply taken some time to get them laid down.

Today, I finally did the deep dive investigation into "Semaphore...", basically pulling apart the song so I that I can track down and fix any issues that were causing the excessive muddiness.  Between the remix and the harmonies that I recorded, I think it took me about 4-5 hours so the vast majority of my day.  I do believe I've solved many of the problems, though, but I won't know for sure until I revisit it.

I know I've said it before but I'm very proud of the lyrics that I wrote for the Defrost Nixon album and I'm so happy that this collection of songs is finally going to see the light of day.  The album overall sounds really quite good, way better than I would have ever thought back when we originally recorded it.  Fingers crossed but I'm hoping to wrap up the Defrost Nixon mixes by the end of June.

A Couple Comments

I'm more or less done with mixing for the week and have moved onto recording.  Yesterday, I started the lovely process of trying to add harmonies to songs.  It was...er, entertaining, as always.

I've met 2-3 kinds of people:  there are those that seem to be able to harmonize with almost anything immediately and sometimes these folks aren't even musicians.  It's kind of phenomenal.  Then, there are those that can't harmonize to save their lives.  And lastly, there's the in between group of which I'm a member who simply find it a struggle.

Working on harmonies yesterday made me stop multiple times due to laughter at the utter awfulness I was creating.  I don't know why harmonies haven't become natural for me but I'm certainly missing something.  I can do it (obviously) but it takes a lot of work and trial and error, and, well, a bit of laughter.

My other comment is yet another rant about Rickenbackers.  If you ever read this, Rick, please take this to heart...  These damns guitars, as lovely as they are and as difficult as they can be sometimes to play, have literally the WORST ever input jacks.  I mean, my god, I can't tell you how many times I've been burned by this.

So, once again, I decide to add a Rick 12 part, and please note that this is not centric to this particular instrument.  I start recording and I keep hearing this noise that I can't immediately place, and it's literally happening during the recording.  I only intended to do one take of this part and ended up doing three because of this noise, which ended up being smart because I figured it out during take 3...that one of the pickup's was basically going in and out audibly as I was playing.  Why?   The stupid *ss input jack.  These dumb guitars (yes, I said that) have input jacks where basically if you don't play the instrument on a weekly basis, they get temperamental and then don't want to work correctly.  Now, let's be honest...I've owned a lot of instruments in my day and I've never encountered this issue on ANY instrument other than a Rick, and almost every Rick I've owned (again, quite a few) have had this issue in one form or another, some with more severity.  I will say that the '61 Capri that I just sold also had this problem...so at least they've been consistent throughout the decades, apparently.  It really is crap when you're trying to record, let me tell you.  I have to remember in the future to make sure that I "prime" the intended guitar prior to trying to record with it which obviously isn't really easy to do or very realistic always.

I also got to use my new Fender Mod Shop Strat yesterday at long last.  I still swear by the Mod Shop stuff...seriously, watch the used categories on Reverb.com and GuitarCenter.com.  You can get them at a steal and they're seriously amazing instruments.  This particular instrument I created myself and bought new since I was after a particular color and such.  I do have an amazing 2012 American Strat for sale now, by the way.

More harmonies and Strat work on the horizon today with probably another very long day.  Tomorrow, I'll probably start on recording the countless acoustic parts I have on my agenda.  I'm starting to see the end of this project on the near horizon and it only took 15 years :s

The Ol' Wreckin' Ball

Yeah, I've been greatly neglecting my blogs again.  It's mainly because I've been incredibly busy juggling way too many things, as always.  On the plus side, things are going quite well but it is pretty exhausting in general.

I'm off of work this week and this week was slotted for working on the "Wrecking Ball" album earlier in the year.  It's great to finally start getting this album in motion; the downside is that I wish the other 3-4 things were completely wrapped up.  Still, I don't get a full week off that often so I have to choose to use it as wisely as possible and so far it's easy to see why I chose "Wrecking Ball".  I'm basically starting the mixing of these 9 songs even though I don't have the real vocal yet in 6 of them.  Mixing the drums has been going well but is a ton of work (as always).  It's been taking me about 2 to almost 4 hours on some songs just on the drums alone.  After that, the rest of the mix is about an additional 1-2 hours.  Tonight I mixed a drum machine based track and the whole thing took me less than 2 hours, although there are very few instruments on the track admittedly.

Here's the really positive part:  if my life depended upon these songs being mixed in one day each, I COULD actually do that.  In fact, if I had the real vocals on all of them, I'm pretty sure they'd all be listenable in one day and could be fairly printable if need be.  Now, that's like a miracle folks considering that most of my mixes up until now have been taking literally days if not months to get close to a listenable state.  I mean...wow.  I think I've finally turned a very valuable corner.

Now, let's be honest...I'm not going to only spend a day on these per song but I also don't think it'll take me months either.  The Defrost Nixon album has also been going in a very positive manner and I'll be doing some finishing work on that later this week and I don't foresee spending excessive hours on it.  I've basically been working like a dog though, doing two sessions a day, and probably putting in 8-10 hours each day, weekends and holiday included.  It's not exactly relaxation time and when I do get a break I'm usually working on forcing out lyrics so I can record these vocals in the near future.

2025 has so far been going fairly on schedule and has been very positive.  I hope I can maintain this for the rest of the year because I clearly can't keep up this frantic pace forever.  In fact, my hope is that 2026 will allow me to finally slow down, take a breath, and maybe even perhaps take an actual vacation, something I haven't done now in years.  In the meantime, though, I'm working my *ss off on these releases and trying to wrap things up.

I actually mixed two songs today and two yesterday, and I'm hoping to do the last two of this album tomorrow.  This will leave 4 days of recording time which should be a nice change.  More updates soon.

Finally Groovin'

Again, I haven't been very good at logging any entries here, mainly because I felt like a broken record (no pun intended) in regards to what I was working on.  It does start to feel like "Groundhog Day" after awhile when you keep going over and over the same songs time and time again.

I think my deep dive on vocal mixing is finally complete.  I did actually redo the "Mirror Land" vocal structure yet again (I've lost count how many times I've done it at this point) but I'm actually really glad I did because this latest round of changes, as minor as they may have been, really make the clarity considerably better.  I'm actually very pleased with these mixes and I've heard them more times than I can count now between my stereo and both of my cars.  This finally landed on structure has now become my "vocal chain", as they like to say, that I'm using on all other tracks going forward.

Piggy backing on the above, I finally made it through all of the "...Fish!" songs and redid the vocal chain on each onen to this new structure.  I haven't physically listened to them thoroughly but I did hear the ones that I was the most concerned about one day in my car and was amazed by how good they sounded so I'm not too terribly concerned at this point.  Even if I need to make some tweaks (fully expected, mind you), I don't think it'll be anything major or super time consuming.

I spent about half of yesterday finally cracking open the "Wrecking Ball" album, doing an initial mix on the first track which I've had some issues with both the drums and the guitars, and I basically need to make a decision on whether any of the electrics need to be re-recorded.  I spent about 4 hours on it and ended up doing an entire mix whereas my initial intent was really only to focus on the drums.  It's amazing how different things sound once you set it all up and starting tinkering.  The downside but also upside is that I realized that there's simply no way to judge what might need to be re-recorded until I do this entire process on each song, so essentially there's no point in wasting my time right now.  Therefore, I won't get into the "Wrecking Ball" stuff any further until my week off during Memorial Day week and will just wing it, re-recording whatever I think requires it.

This means back to Defrost Nixon!  Yes, I'm now juggling 3 full albums and 2 EP's...all at the same time.  I'm intending to finally close out the 2 EP's over the next 2 weeks, and yes, I'll do some sort of minor celebratory dance once that's done because it's been, well, quite a road to this point.  In the meantime, the next 3 weeks will also be Defrost Nixon heavy mixing time with the intent of having pretty solid mixes by the last week of May.  Then, I'll start mixing "Wrecking Ball" during Memorial Day week, and then after that it'll be time to bounce back to "...Fish!".  Yeah, it's a bit chaotic, I'll admit.  My hope and plan is to have all of the above done by Labor Day.

The good news it that everything is still on track for the year and I am actually feeling strangely confident overall.  I also had and took the opportunity to listen to all of my rough tracks for the upcoming "Beautiful Silence" album, which is more or less the follow up to "Theories for the Opsimath", and I was super pleased with what I've got down already.  I can't wait to be able to focus on this new album for I think it'll be really somethin'.  The "Wrecking Ball" album also seems super promising and quite possibly a dreamy album for me in regards to a harder rock sound.  Even though I'm not quite 'there' yet, I feel like the actual reward from all of this is finally on the horizon, where I can start focusing on bigger and better things.  Wow.

"Hump" Day

I took a bit of a break from the blogs over the past month, hence almost no new posts at all.  I don't have a ton to report, really, for I've been in "vocal hell" for about 2-3 months now, possibly more.  Who knew vocals were such a pain in the *ss?!  Next to drums, I'd say they're the hardest to get right.

I've had to unwind things, try again, fail, do some research, unwind things, try again, and so on in an endless loop for quite some time now.  I finally have a bit of a process down that seems to be working but I still have anomalies that I can't fully account for and so there's a lot of going back and forth.  It's quite maddening but it's all part of getting over the "hump", as they say.  Once you're over the hump, you usually don't really have to look back...but the hump itself can be rough.

I have not had the time to work on the Defrost Nixon tracks like I need to.  Instead, I've been working on the "...Fish!" mixes and I chose this partly due to that being the original plan and because it's sometimes easier to play around with something you're struggling with on tracks that you've haven't already heard 100 times in the last week.  At this point, I've gone through the entire "...Fish!" album but only about half of it has the latest iteration of my vocal processing so there's still a ton more to do.  I did find last night that one of the last tracks I needed to work on has a bunch of highly annoying noise on the vocal and I'm not sure if I'll be able to deal with it in post so it's looking like it might be a re-record...which is a bit depressing.  I've got a few more things to try but it's not looking too positive.  As for the noise, all I can imagine is that I was positioned way too close to the mic and perhaps felt lazy that day and didn't use a windscreen?!  Who knows...but the noise is highly annoying and widely across the high spectrum so not easy to remove without ruining the vocal quality.

If nothing else, I have been learning a lot but it's just by the usual trial and error, with more error initially than success.  The "Mirror Land" EP release is now almost a month overdue and it's starting to give me anxiety.  I think I need to do something to get it wrapped over the next 2 weeks at most.  Ugh.  I see some hard decisions ahead.

Easter has come and gone and now we're pushing towards May.  Where does the time go?!!  I didn't have much of a holiday for it was spent between yard work and hours in the music studio.  Day off, you say?!  Vacation??!  These are words I'm no longer familiar with...at least not until I get over this hump.  Damn hump.

Minor Rant

It's time for a minor rant (I know, you're saying "...another one??!")...  Something that drives me absolutely bonkers is the craze of posting videos on, say, YouTube where the presenter is telling people how to do something in mixing, or how to use a plugin, etc., and the source material that they're working with is literally either pristinely recorded or possibly already doctored.

I mean, this absurd and I bring it up because I just watched part of a UAD video touting one of their many plugin's for drums.  I'll tell ya that I've had a hell of a time with the drums that I've worked with so far.  I don't record my own drums because I don't have the space for it so I outsource them to a friend/acquaintance who's actually a drummer so you'd think he's got a pretty good grip on drum recording, right?  Most of the drums that I get back from him are so challenging for me to work with that I almost always resort to at least some level of drum replacement.  When watching these sample videos, though, you'd think that everyone is working with drum sounds the likes of polished Phil Collin's stuff.  I mean, it's ridiculous.  If I had that great of sounding raw tracks to begin with, well, I wouldn't be researching how to make this sound good, would I?!

All this does, and I'm sure it's the very intent of course, is make you the user feel like a dumb *ss, like you don't know what you're doing and therefore NEED this stupid plugin that they're selling.  Well, friends, this is all complete and utter bullsh*t and just marketing, at least in my opinion.  Shame on these companies and anyone who posts these sorts of videos because you're not doing any service to anyone who is trying to do something creative by making them feel bad about their work.  Grr.

Drums are really tough and they're central to the whole recording.  I've found that if the drums don't sound right, don't fit the space, don't have the proper energy to mix with the other elements of the song, you basically end up with a very strange output.  They're simply crucial and whereas I'm sure I have a lot more to learn about how to properly mix drums since I'm no expert, I don't think I'm exactly the only one who isn't working with not great sounding raw tracks.  A lot of the same words can be said about raw electric guitar tracks.  Way too many times these videos are working with polished audio and I know that because raw guitar tracks simply don't sound like that...they're, um, raw, not polished.

Here's another small piece of advice/complaint that I've run across countless times.  I don't know why more of these "how to" videos don't right up front talk about what kind of music they're working with.  Duh.  For example, I was really struggling with vocals recently and did some research, and there are countless "how to EQ vocals" videos out there.  You'd think they'd say up front "this is for rock" or "this is for rap"; I mean, the approach here is way different.  So, if you're not careful, you can jot down a bunch of notes about EQ'ing vocals and it'll end up sounding bizarre, and you're left scratching your head wondering how you could be so stupid that this doesn't work for you...when all along you're mixing country and they're talking about hip hop :)  I just don't get it.

Okay, that's my rant for the day.  My mixing projects are actually going really well.  "Mirror Land" is pretty much on target for the 4/1 release but I may be slightly late, depending upon how backed up the mastering is.  "Petty Cash" is just about done and Defrost Nixon continues to transform into something more and more listenable every day.  I'll post more soon on these releases when I have an update.

Cool Cats

This is a quick post about one of my favorite and biggest necessity products - Cool Picks "Cat Tongue" guitar picks.  Seriously, these things are fabulous and they're the only picks I use and have used now for years after finding them.  The story was that I received a handful of these as an Xmas gift about a decade ago, and I really thought it was an off gift at the time...until I actually tried them out.

I originally used Fender Mediums, just the plain jane ones, of which I purchased a gross of back around 1990.  Believe it or not, I think I still have half a bag left.  I used them for years but always had issues with them, one of them being that they're kind of large for guitars and the other simply being the lack of grip.

Let me explain that one of my many issues in life is sweating heavily.  It's a terrible trait, I tell ya, and causes a decent amount of grief all over the place.  For example, my first good acoustic guitar, of which I didn't polish daily back then, had the finish evaporate/fall off on the back of it due to extensive sweat being placed on it, mainly from my stomach area since I stand when I play.  Back then, I lived in Arizona and it's a known thing that many people try to save some dollars on a/c bills by keeping their homes warmer than expected, and for me this meant I would sweat pretty heavily when I'd practice daily.  I was heartbroken when the finish developed a cloudy spot and eventually flaked off.  Luckily, Breedlove was able to respray the back of it and I've pretty much never NOT polished my guitars daily ever since.

Guitar picks were no different for me.  As odd as it may seem to say, my fingers and thumb would sweat as I played and so the pick would always slowly rotate in my grip.  It was terribly annoying and really slowed down my progress on guitar in general.  Around the early 2000's, I discovered the Gator Grip picks which are normal plastic but have this powdered coating on them to help keep them from moving around.  I used these for years and thought they were pretty good until I found the Cool Picks "Cat Tongues".

Seriously, these picks don't move - period.  I've heard some people say that they stick too much for them but for me personally, again someone with sweat related issues, these were the exact solution I was searching for.  And, to make it even better, those original Fender picks used to break all the time, as did the Gator Grips.  These Cool Picks literally almost never break, in fact I'd say that I've only ever replaced 1-2 in the nearly 15 years I've been using them.  So, yes, they're pricey but they're built to last as well, including the grip.

Just thought I'd share!  I'm a definite believer in these picks but they're not widely available, for whatever reason, but you can certainly find them if you dig just a bit.  If nothing else, Amazon usually has at least one seller offering them.

Experience This

Nothing major to report over here except the usual pushing through revisions, revisiting and updating mixes, etc.  I did experiment yesterday with my overall drum process on a mix where it simply wasn't working and I think I found yet another hole in how I'm doing things.  Not a major one, mind you, but I'm now curious how much this will roll over to other songs.  I feel like I'm always eternally updating my overall work flow.

I did watch a video briefly yesterday on YouTube that just happened to come up in my feed about recreating the guitar sound and riff from U2's song "Wire" off of "The Unforgettable Fire" album.  It was interesting and once again brought up a bunch of mixed emotions for me but the real takeaway, besides anything having to do with the Edge or U2 itself, was that YouTube in general is simply saturated with videos about recreating things.

Strangely, I've never really cared much about sounding like someone else or playing covers.  Now, I've always said that I don't think I'm of this planet because I simply don't really seem to care about things other people are obsessed with.  Why?  I have no clue, but I'm just not.  Sill, you can't deny that the internet is just overflowing with "how to play that solo" or "get that guitar sound" or the most ridiculous of all things, the "which one is better" argument, comparing, say, two songs that have nothing really in common.  It's no wonder I'm not really into online videos in general.

What's MISSING in my opinion is anyone talking about CREATING something new.  Wow.  Now, there's an idea.  Imagine that?  It's like all creativity flew out the window years ago and now we're simply trying to be David Gilmour, the Edge, Jimmy Page, and so on.  Even the guitar pedal reviews are quite similar, rarely talking about creating something never made but instead things like "this pedal will recreate that Pink Floyd sound..."  It's all very odd, at least to a creative minded person.

Seriously, if you had told me back in the 80's that in 40+ years the predominant musical live act would be trying to recreate a band/experience from the past, ala "the Prince Experience" or the Australian Pink Floyd Show, I would have laughed hysterically saying "no way!".  In other words, a cover band.  Boy, was I wrong about that.  I get asked a lot about why I don't have my own YouTube channel, posting videos of me demonstrating how to play cover songs.  My answer - why would I want to?  I mean, I didn't learn to play an instrument to sit around and play other people's music...I learned simply in order to write my own.  Am I that strange?  These days perhaps.

Those are my thoughts for today.  Don't get me wrong...there are some great YouTube videos out there that are truly designed to help people, and I think that's great - seriously.  In fact, I reference some of those often for mixing advice and such, so I'm not really knocking them.  I'm just shocked that I don't seem to stumble upon creative minded things.  Maybe that's the channel I should start?

Dates at Last

I'm just finishing up my mixing chores for the week/weekend.  Things are going pretty well overall, and whereas they are slow going at times, my overall pace now has picked up greatly that I've overcome a few of the outstanding obstacles that I was really struggling with.

I can finally say that I'm looking at an April 1st release for the "Mirror Land" EP at very long last.  Yes, sure, it was supposed to be last April/May...but it was actually a great choice for me to really work through a ton of the mixing issues that had been boggling my mind.  I'm still fighting a bit with the rework of "Only With You" but I'm fairly confident that the April 1st date will stick.  It also will leave me enough time to make some minor changes to the CD artwork, possibly design a t-shirt, etc.

I believe I've decided upon a June 1st release for the Defrost Nixon album.  I actually expect to be done tinkering with the mixes by April 1st but I want to bake in enough time for me to get the artwork done, etc.  That one's actually going to be a bit tricky since I'm more or less creating that from scratch, and usually that takes a bit of doing and such.  There's also a music video in the works of which my friend has been working on for the past few months.

"It's Raining Elvis Fish!", the redux of my Robyn Hitchcock tribute album, is looking at a July 1st release.  This one needs a front cover as well but I know precisely what I want so it's just a matter of physically taking the photo.  I should be starting the final work on these mixes probably around mid March.

Other things that I've been working on are the "Petty Cash" EP, the "Acoustic Sampler" EP, and a few random cover tunes that I've actually never released before.  I have a few other things that I'll probably start tinkering with shortly as well but these are all in the bonus column.

For the next big project, that will be the long awaited "Wrecking Ball" album.  This will be a pretty heavy lift since I have to comb through all of the tracks, get the drums sounding decent, probably do a bit of rerecording, and then also finish the lyrics and record the vocals.  There's a lot to do here but it'll be a fun one.  It's actually one of the albums that I'm the most excited about.

Other things on the docket for 2025 include returning to the "Lost Weekend" remix, the "Yet I Tried for You" EP, and the new Jazz Loop Machine album "Sorry, I Forgot to Mention This".  Yes, there's a lot to do in 2025 :)  Of course, it always remains to be seen how much actually gets accomplished but I should do well if I stay on it, which is my plan.

Been Slippin'

I've been slippin' a bit on my blogging duties, if you will, and apparently I missed an entire month.  Hmph!  Oh well, such is life.

I've been hard at work with close to no breaks, although I did take almost a week off due to visiting family in Arizona.  I think I needed to step away for a bit anyhow but there were other goals at hand, making the trip out to AZ a fulfilling one in general.  It sounds like I'll be making more trips soon since my father is apparently planning on moving to an assisted living home, something that was news to us and that he dropped into casual conversation.  This means we need to more or less get anything out of his house that we'd want, such as family photos, etc.  You can imagine the "fun" that awaits...aye.  I don't even know what exactly is in that house, at this point.

I spent almost all of January mixing my vocals.  I know, you're probably thinking, huh?!  Well, I found a hole in my process and I had to basically go back to the root and figure out what I was doing wrong.  I knew it would take some time but I felt it was a good trade considering I was going to be doing the same thing over and over for the next 6+ months so I might as well get a better handle on what I'm doing right and wrong before taking those dives.

I believe I ended up getting out of it what I needed.  I watched a lot of YouTube videos online about mixing vocals and found that most of them don't help me but actually do damage, at least when it comes to my voice.  I've had an extreme sibilance issue for quite some time and it's amazing how the smallest EQ tweak can bring that to the forefront.  By doing a deep dive on this, I more or less started understanding where I'm going wrong but also started brainstorming on how to work around it.  There's a very fine line between removing sibilance and making a vocal sound dead and lifeless, and it's not an easy dance to do.

As of last night's listening, the title track "Mirror Land" is pretty much ready to go.  "Optimism" still has issues, and I don't yet know how but I somehow introduced another issue that I'm hoping to work through today.  I also started tinkering with "Only With You" and I'm doing it very carefully since I'd rather not blow on the track too hard and make the whole thing fall over.  I'm actually fairly optimistic that I'm finally, at very long last, nearing the end for this EP.  It's been one hell of a learning process, I'll tell ya.

The "Petty Cash" EP is moving along very well.  Most of the music is done and I'm just fighting with the vocals at this point, especially since the older the recording the more the sibilance.  As I think I may have already mentioned, I have this other weird occurrence on these recordings of tape hiss...and that's weird since this was done on digital tape.  I guess the deal is that I recorded this stuff (keep in mind this was ages ago and my first recordings) at too low of a level so the noise floor is super high, creating the hiss, probably along with the mixing board not being the greatest.  I'm doing some fancy editing here and there to try and contain it since you can't really strip it out entirely.  I'm also confident that I'll have this EP wrapped up fairly soon as well.

I've finally started deep diving on mixing the Defrost Nixon material.  Previously, I did all the setup work...and that's really what takes the majority of the time usually.  Now, I'm trying to take those mixes and whip 'em into shape for final mixes.  So far, it's not been too bad but I'm of course having some issues here and there.  One thing I've certainly learned is that hearing an issue isn't a problem; the challenge is figuring "what" the issue is, and that's much harder than you'd think.  It's not always super obvious.

That's my mixing update for now.  I need to update my other 2 blogs as well but I'm not sure when I'll have time.  I'll hopefully get to those soon.