Cover Art Updates

A few updates to the cover art. I have replaced bill's bio picture. I have also swapped in the "roadside toothbrush" picture in the place of where the ice trucker pic USED to be down along the bottom.



I also fixed the color saturation on the nob hill pic. Famous.

As far as I can tell, this is pretty much done. I don't know of any other change controls that have been submitted, nor can I see any room for improvement myself.

New Liner Notes, with Updates

I have updated the text of the liner notes to reflect feedback from Mzzr Fischer. Every specific grammar/spelling/punctuation note was fixed. Almost all "suggestions" were attended to. Much re-wording all around.

Also removed "Above you". I forgot that we were not including that one.



Still need to do some updating of the pics.

BNB T-Conf

Today, Bill and I had a quick phone call to discuss progress on the album cover artwork. We reviewed the most recent versions of the artwork in real-time, and had a discussion about a few points I was interested in feedback on. Here are my notes from the phone call:

lighten up ice road trucker - make this the bio pc
ok with HDM text
REplace ice road trucker pic with a different
Bill will find something

Bio text from bill is complete.
Maybe color saturate nob hill

pull bill pic from roadside into foreground. Replace beach picture.

Pull out angels baseball from liner notes.

Get a serial number for the spine.
For CD on print, go with BNB colors pring

update website




This is a healthy little todo list that should keep me busy for a few hours. Updating the website will take the longest, but that will be fun. I have some existing templates that I can pour everything into. I'm sure it will roxor.

Ok, LAST one.

ONE last experiment with text placement for the album title. And no more. It's going to be a choice between one of the four posted. no more dorkin' around.



I think this one is actually my favorite.

And nunna that "there's something missing" bullSheeit either.

Experimenta-showne.

Got some fan feedback. And we all know how well fan feedback has served us in the past. Right?

Anywze, I fattened up the "Black and Blue" text, and took two different approaches to the "high Desert Mystery" text. Just messin' really. I don't want to over complicate this with too many options, but I thought it was worth pursuing.





AND, I did some color cleaning on the inside disk lable. nothing really fantastic, just a deeper black.

On Disk Artwork

Here are the two concepts I've got cooking for the on-disk artwork. I could go either way. With the artwork, that is. Sheesh.





Disregard the depth of the black. I'll fix that later. You get the idea.

Album Artwork Getting Closer

Here is the current state of the union for album cover artwork:








Couple of comments. In re-reading Bill's bio, I did make a couple editorial changes. When we first wrote those down, I was haphazardly taking dictation on my netbook while sitting in the hangar. It was more stream-of-consciousness, not polished text. So in reviewing it, I made a couple TINY changes to make it more prosaic, less rambling. You can compare it to earlier versions if you are curious about the changes.

The picture of bill on the bio page is still temporary.

The song order on the back tray is still temporary. I also added a "producer" credit for both Bill and I. For reference, I tend to list bill's name first for alphabetical consistency. Not because I think he's the boss of me. Which he is most certainly not.

Center fold out/liner notes is essentially done. The ONLY thing I struggle with is font. VERY tempting to use the same font that I use for the BNB logo and the bio page, but I fear that because the print is so small, it will become distorted upon print. A more straight-laced font will probably react better. Just a theory. Not sure. Also not sure if I care.

I am currently working on the on-disk print, which I am just going to make completely simple. Nothing terriffic. ALTHOUGH I am tempted to mirror the BNB logo that is on the background of the bio page. I thought that looked really good on the CD single, but Would it be considered re-hash if I did that?

Tray Card Updates

A few tiny tweaks to the tray card. As per my last post, I thickened up the song list text, and also offset the drop shadow a tiny bit. Just to make it more legible. I also re-did the grit filter, making a few changes to it so that it's a bit more unique. On a technical aside, I also resized it to properly fit the template. Previously it was just haphazardly placed on the template, with a few inches of bleed on one side. It's a little bit cleaner now



As with my previous comments, this is really pretty much where I want it to be, aside from final song order. I may make some tiny tweaks along the way just to make it a little cleaner, but the overall layout is right where I think it should be.

Tray Card Near Complete

Aside from final decision on song order, I believe this is just about done. I MAY thicken up the text a little on the song list. In fact, I think I will. Other than that, This is right about where I want it to be.

True Grit - Liner Notes Cont'd

A few tiny changes. I added the grit layer, which I think is cool and suits the theme of the album. I also added in a few more pictures along the bottom, and did some re-arranging. I'm sort of on the fence about some of the pics I selected, but they are all travel/adventure related. Though not necessarily desert related. I think I'm overthinking things.



Also made some minor changes to the text layout. Made the first "W" spacing a little different. Very biblical. Though not in proportion.

Liner Notes Update With Spellcheck

Here's the latest version of the liner notes. Includes a number of tiny spelling, capitalization and grammar changes. Nothing signficiant, just little clean ups. Is that even a word?

Liner Notes - This Time With Feeling

Looks like I forgot to attach the pic last time I posted about liner notes. Here it is.



And upon uploading it, I noticed a bunch of errors in the text. I will correct them.

Front Cover Art Updates

A bit more work finished on the front cover art. Added in text for our bios. The picture for ME is the final one, but Bills is temporary.



Please keep in mind for ALL of these work in progress photos that I am NOT removing the bleed. So there's additional artwork around the borders that will be chopped off after the printing process is complete.

Liner Note Thoughts

I'm sorry to say that it looks like the liner notes are going to be SEVERELY truncated in order to make them fit on the inside jacket. We wrote A LOT of text. I figure I will have to chop out about 75% of the text, just to make it fit. And that's pushing the lower limits of font size for the art work.

The GREAT news is that we can always publish the extended liner notes on the website, or on the blog. So the information will certainly not be lost. It just won't be printed on the album sleeve.

Liner Notes Polished

This is the 200th post to this blog! yay! I don't know what that even means, but I'm sure it's some kind of accomplishment.

I just finished up editing the liner notes for the album. And by "editing", i really just mean fixing grammar and typos. I didn't really make any editorial decisions, other than changing the voice in a few places. For example, the original text may have said something like "I recorded guitar on tuesday". This got changed to "Bill recorded guitar on tuesday".

I didn't introduce any new text or meaning to the narrative, just cleaned it up.

However, we wrote a LOT of stuff for the liner notes. I fear that I may have to chop some out, but that is pure speculation. I will find out more once I pour it into the artwork template. Either way, more progress has been made. My goal is to have all of the album cover artwork finished by the end of the month, pending song order.

Back Insert Almost Done

As with my previous post, this is an update on the current state of the album artwork.

This is the back page. This is includes the spine.



There's really very little different between this and some of the concept art I posted a while back. Main difference is that this was all laid out in Adobe Illustrator in high res CMYK. There's a few tiny tweaks, and the song list is not final, but this is pretty close. I'm still on the fence about whether or not to use a "dirty filter" over the entire image, just to add some sandy-grain type noise to it. i think I WILL go with it, but that will be the very last thing I do.

There's also still a little bit of work to do to make sure the text is legible. It's gotta POP! woohoo!!

Album Artwork Nearing Completion

I am done with the design of the cover artwork. Now I am just assembling it all together in a high res format with the text being left as vectors. I'm doing this in adobe illustrator. it's really just a process of recreating what I did previously in photoshop.

Here's where it stands as of this very second.



Disregard the big blue blob on the left. That's just a place holder.

Anyhow, I may do some last minute tweaks on the placement of the little photos, but as of right now, this is pretty much what it's going to look like.

Put this in the deck

Second Best Blog Ever

After Classic Stickmen.

http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

Unrelated

But sheer genius.

Black and Blue Summit!

Recently Bill Fischer and Matt Munson got together for some rock and roll! Here's the breakdown of how it went.

Munson arrived at precisely 12:15. At 12:16, mayhem. After a brief tour of the newly outfitted garage (freshly prepped for operation Buff and Bronze 2010) the duo headed off to Carl's Jr, to dine on the typical Black and Blue staple foods. Much chatting was done about the red status of the album project, and how we faced pressure from senior management to finish the project, or risk having our funding pulled. Munson dropped the gauntlet by announcing that he will be "pressing click" on the DiskMaker website on August 15, hell or high water. The not so subtle threat being that if Bill wants to have a hand in the mixes, he had better pony up! All in good fun, natch.

After Carl's, it was time to hit the hangar where BNB discussed getting big, and progress on the airplane project. Matt also revealed that his todo item for the day was to create the liner notes for the album. Overall, it was really fun kickin' back in the "man cave" that is the hangar, and catching up on all the various goings on. And by Various Goings On, I specifically mean getting big with P90X.

Once back at Bill's house, Matt busted out the NetBook and Liner notes were produced. There were a few false starts as the boys struggled with the overall ethos of the notes, and how much they wanted to give away. A fairly technical yet straightforward approach was finally decided, which reveals more of the mechanics of the recording sessions, and less of the motivations for the songs. Due to pending old age and early onset alzeimers, Bill and Matt relied heavily on this very blog for most of the details of the liner notes. Thank goodness for the interwebz. Without them, their failing memories would have yielded a big fat pile of nothing for the liner notes.

Or they could have just made a bunch of stuff up.

With the bid-ness of the day behind them, it was time to move on to the party. Guitars were passed around, video camera engaged, and BNB got down to doing what they do best: The Nasty. And by "The Nasty", I of course mean "Rock and Roll".

It started light with Matt pounding out the chords for "Married with Children", the soft acoustic number from Oasis, with Bill improvising a respectable lead that was very reminiscent of Noel's line from the album. After that warm up, the goal was made clear: play through all of the songs that are on the album. Which oddly enough, proved to be more difficult than it sounds. But mainly for Munson, whose lifelong struggle to remember lyrics continues to plague his every day existence. Refusing to let Bill print out lyrics, he was much happier to simply stumble through the songs, with the frequent "Deer in the headlights" glances at Bill when his lyrical knowledge reached it's end point.

Somehow they struggled through, and along the way had a lot of fun. All of this was sort of prep/feasability-study for the oft promised Supporting Tour of the upcoming album.

Bill also unveiled his newest acquisition, a Fender Telecaster with a B-Bender, something Matt had never seen before. The guitar sounds great, and serves as a great addition to the ever growing quiver.



It was around this time that Lisa revealed to Bill via a guarded whisper that today was actually their wedding anniversary. Congrats all around, followed by looks of shame as Bill and Matt realized they had just pissed away this historic occasion with rock and roll and hamburgers. And they say romance is dead!!!

Family Fun Time followed, with Brandon keeping up his "oh no, I'm dead" act. Will was uber proud of his 100% organic bug boat, as Erika showed off her collection of horses, both from the real world and the fantastical one.

A few handshakes later and Matt was back on the road, heading for points unknown.

Mixing Slowed to a Crawl by Rhinovirus!

A nasty cold has stopped up my mixing progress for the last week (brought home by the Fischer shock troops from Walteria Elementary kinderclass). Should be fully cleared by the weekend.

I should have left it alone, but you know it wasn't easy. And now two noses are blown. The rhinovirus made me queasy.

Me queasy.

High Desert Mystery - On The Road?

Now that High Desert Mystery is headed toward sequencing and release, Matt and I have started to explore our options for taking the material “on the road.”  As usual, the foundational discussions occurred at the Carl’s Jr. on Pacific Coast Highway near Torrance Airport! 

We settled into the window booth with the usual low-octane biomass at our disposal accompanied by ranch dressing, and swapped our respective Black & Blue takes on getting back to playing live.  For me, returning to the stage to present strong, soulful performances to an audience is something I have been eager to do for a long time, and Matt, too, has felt the urge to get in front of a crowd with his guitar.  In fact, not long ago he was actively prepping for a few solo gigs in Ohio.  So first and foremost, the inclination is definitely there.

So how would we approach things, given the impetus of the High Desert Mystery CD?

At a high level, we both agree that if it comes down to a choice, we are more interested in making an entertaining show than in any promotional agenda, but we would obviously try to emphasize the overlap between the two.

Matt has taken to heart a lesson learnt from his past coffee-house experience: that audiences appreciate hearing songs that are familiar to them.  Back in the Stickmen/My New Invention days, I had a rule of thumb that “cover” songs should optimally be about 1/3 of the set, but now I agree with Matt that 50% or even higher is probably more like it – especially since we are starting over, without the active fan base we had built up with our old band.

So we have to be geared toward winning over first time listeners.  The goal should be that at the end of the evening, you enjoyed the show enough to take home our CD at very low cost or maybe free, because what we really want is for you to hear our recordings.  For the rest of the universe, the CD will be available dirt cheap on the web from CD Baby.  And also, when you listen to the CD, it should ideally bear some resemblance to what you heard and liked at the show.  So the show can’t be all covers, because the CD is all original songs.

Note the contrast with the My New Invention commercial model, which was: put on a show that caters to the existing fans in the audience, with the hope that other strangers in the audience will be won over instantly and purchase our CD on the spot at full price – which was the only way to obtain a copy, due to total lack of distribution (apart from one store in Fullerton).  This business model failed; CD sales just didn’t become reality at our shows.

(This was despite turning in some pretty darn solid performances.  The band was at its peak, but we found ourselves out of college and playing to empty bars on weeknights.  Ah, memory lane.  Now I can’t believe we felt even slightly old back then.  Why did we stop?)

The next big question for Black and Blue is how to present our music in a way that serves both the High Desert Mystery material, and the realities of the venues we are likely to play.  In particular, our forthcoming CD is a full-band rock and roll album, but our “Black and Blue” lineup is just Matt and me.  We did the album by doubling up on instrumental duties – Matt playing the drums throughout and me doing a lot of guitar and bass overdubs – but obviously that won’t work on stage.

So the two obvious options are (1) to switch to the traditional Black and Blue acoustic duo format, optimized for the coffee houses, and adapt the songs accordingly, OR (2) to recruit some musicians to present a rock-and-roll show at the more roadhouse-like venues.  The latter option has tempted me for a long time.  With my old band(s) defunct, I have been tempted to “get back on the road” as Swamptooth, somehow constituted as a rock and roll outfit.  Black and Blue might accomplish the same thing, but as it turns out, Matt is leaning more strongly toward the pared-down coffee-house format, mostly out of reluctance to roll the dice with new band members.

Okay, the rock-and-roll route appeals to me in many ways, but I can relate to Matt’s reservations about the compromises and teething pains that go along with growing a new band.  It takes a big investment of life force to parse out all the band members’ agendas, musical tastes and personality issues, and make it all work.  My own idiosyncrasies are enough as it is.  So whose favorite songs do you end up playing?  You might say that Matt prefers, as Don Varner once famously quipped, to “play what I want.”

Still, I have a hard time letting go of the band approach, because there is an itch that only rock and roll can scratch.  I also have found that what you gain from a good band is much more than you lose.

Bottom line though, both options hold plenty of appeal, and I can’t see regretting either choice.

Fun conversation over a burger and fries.  But then as now, it’s time to get back to work on the CD!

Good progress!

I finally had a chance to read the updates to the blog, and I am pleased! Not that my opinion matters, but it's good to see things progressing. I think we're officially behind schedule for a June release, but I think we can still pull it off if the final mixes become reality soon.

Your serve, sir!

Mastering, Compression, and Loudness

As we press on through the mixing and mastering for for High Desert Mystery, we have to wrestle with the question of how much compression is OK.  This decision is critical to the end result in terms of the "listening experience."  Most new CDs are way overcompressed.  But the flip side is that without much compression, the end result just doesn't sound like a real "record."

What Happened to Dynamic Range?

I think we should do this.  And maybe this.

April Mixdown: Surveying the Baseline

April was the first song recorded for High Desert Mystery, so now that we are vetting the final mixes, what better place to begin?

This song was completed in a single session, January 20, 2008, with me acting as "producer."  Matt played the drums, which we recorded with only two microphones: kick drum and overhead.  I operated the digital audio workstation (DAW) while performing the scratch vocal and guitar.  I had one mike for the vocal, and the two built-in pickups in my Martin D-1 acoustic guitar: one piezo-acoustic bridge pickup and one internally mounted condenser microphone.

We warmed up with one recorded take of "I Ain't Never" before beginning numbered takes of "April" as follows:

Takes 1-4:  missing (probably deleted immediately)
Takes 5-8:  false starts
Take 9:   complete
Take 10:  false start
Take 11:  missing
Take 12:  false start
Take 13:  complete
Take 14:  false start
Take 15(?):  the master take

As it turned out, my basic guitar track was error-free and therefore usable, so we kept it.  Matt then recorded a second acoustic guitar part using the same internal pickups, plus the Apex condenser microphone, which was our best available mike throughout the High Desert Mystery sessions.  Matt's guitar playing imparted a quasi-swing feel which unexpectedly enhanced the basic arrangement.

My harmonica part was next, followed by Matt's tambourine, and then my bass guitar.  Probably all with the Apex mike, though the bass might have been direct.  I doubt it.  I also don't remember whether it was "Red Bass" or Julian Kingston's Jazz Bass.

Finally, we worked on my vocal track.  We recorded two tracks: one called "crap vocal" - whose chief fault appears to have been a few missed lines - and a second called "double vocal" which includes some drop-in fixes, but intentionally left in a flub that was perfectly doubled from the scratch vocal track.  At the time we liked the flub.  Now we have to live with it, or else revive the "crap vocal" for that line.

Matt's final mix from April 4, 2010 dispensed with the "crap vocal" altogether, which has been deleted from the master project file.

Matt's mix is pretty spartan, without effects or equalization except on two tracks: the harmonica features reverb, as does the main lead vocal, which is also heavily equalized with 3-4 dB cuts around 750 and 6000 Hz, a -8dB shelf at 9000 Hz, and a 12 dB boost below 180 Hz (the "proximity zone").

Matt automated the fader on his acoustic guitar track to bring it as an accent on about half the song, but only on the internal condenser mike.  He also automated the scratch vocal, but muted it out of the final mix.

Overall, this mix sounds pretty decent.  There are a couple of potential edits that are tempting me: I would like to fix the flubbed vocal line by flying in that section from the deleted "crap vocal," and I would also like to eliminate or steeply diminish the final cymbal crash, probably with fader automation rather than editing.

UPDATE: edits are complete!

Swamptooth: On the Final Push

So now that the blue contingent (a.k.a. Matt Munson) has worked his editing magic, and handed the mixes over to me, I have set about the task of sprinkling black pixie dust over the whole affair.

I have to say I am VERY impressed at the high quality of the pure Munson mixes, and my philosophical starting point is that I will leave things the way they are, unless I am POSITIVE that the particular changes I have in mind will make a definite, noticeable improvement.  But what is critical (to me, anyway) is that I ensure that I am comfortable with the end result before it goes to the presses.

We definitely rushed things on the "Second Time Around" single - which Matt and I basically mastered at one sitting - and I must admit that I do have real regrets over the final mix on that CD (in a way that wasn't true for the My New Invention CD, which was well mixed whatever its other faults).  At the time I said "never again."

In retrospect, a minor disappointment on the single was for the best, because I had originally pushed pretty hard to release the whole album in December 2008.  Had we done so, and had an entire album of rushed mixes, I probably would have ended up dissatisfied with High Desert Mystery as released.  But that was my original premise for the album - for it to be a pure 2008 project, recorded and released that year, with no loose ends hanging out.

Oddly enough, it was Matt who put the brakes on at that time, and the album entered an all-too-familiar period of "My New Invention" style limbo in 2009.  But it wasn't truly in limbo, because Matt was busy tinkering, on and off.  At his instigation, we even did an extra overdub session in March 2009.  The months dragged on, and then we ended up recording a completely new track!  Each time he made it out to the West Coast, I requested that he bring the master tapes for mixing, but in reality the editing was still a work in progress.

All in all, it was probably worth the wait.  Mr. Munson is justifiably proud of the technological terror he has constructed.  And naturally, he wants it "out on the street" as soon as possible.  So back in April, Matt and I grabbed a burger at the nearby Carl's Jr. and laid the ambitious goal of releasing the CD by June.  To that end, Matt committed to delivering the files to me straightaway , and sure enough two DVDs arrived in the mail on about May 6.

Unfortunately, the timing couldn't have been worse.  The master tapes arrived hot on the heels of a new baby , who coincidentally was born right on top of not one but THREE new program assignments at work, all high visibility and two of them badly behind schedule, requiring late evenings and Saturdays at the office as far as the eye could see.  If that was not enough, we were also in the middle of some hard-core home renovation to accommodate our enlarged brood, mostly involving heat guns, scrapers, long hours on hands and knees, and some bonus time in the crawlspace.  Not very conducive to rock and roll!  Oh, and did I mention I had an airplane under construction, and18 months left to get it airworthy?

In light of everything, the goal of June album release was pretty ambitious.  The only bright spot in the thicket of deadlines was that I had planned 2-3 weeks off work after the baby was born: family leave, and intended for the family, but which would also provide breathing room for the final mixing push.  The trouble was (still is) that I am committed to getting all my new programs back on their feet before taking my leave.

Which is a long way of explaining that it's not been easy to give the mixdown process the priority it wants!  But I am managing to carve out time.  As part of the balancing act, I had decided to MIX rather than BLOG about mixing.  By May 22, I had my post-production studio up and running.  Now I have shaken off some of the rust from my Cubase skills, and I have a couple of mixes under my belt.  If I had time, I would definitely make some equipment upgrades.  The monitor situation is ... just okay.  The PC available for the job is ... marginal at best, and as loud as a hairdryer!  But the starting line has been cleared.

So now June has arrived and I am conscious of my collaborator's eagerness for product.  Well, deadline or no, this album is coming out pretty damned soon!  Kind of like having a baby.  I want it DONE, and I don't need external motivation to that end.  I also find it pretty irritating to be tracked to yet another deadline!  Still, it's not right to leave the "blue" half in suspense.  So what to do?  Well, now I think maybe I was wrong about the blogging thing.  Yes, "live blogging" the final mix will add time to the process.  But it has a few key advantages: (1) it will avoid surprises by keeping Matt in the loop, able to weigh in on technical and aesthetic issues, and aware of schedule realities in real time, (2) it will hold a mirror up to my own progress, and (3) it will add to the fun of doing it!

So enough "yacking" about process.  Time to get down to nitty gritty details.

Stay tuned.

Finishing The Album: Step 35 - Sorting Through Photos

Today I went through almost my entire photo library in search of photos that I can use on the album cover. You know, in place of all those little tiny photos along the bottom?

I've got a ton of great candidates, and I think it will work out nicely.

Finishing The Album: Step 34 - Details on the cover art

I am actually working today. At the office for a Disaster Recovery test. For the most part, this just means I'm on the phone listening in.

So while I had some free time today, I did a little research online about the requirements of the grahpics for the album. Diskmakers has published a really nice FAQ that covers pretty much everything.

http://www.discmakers.com/templates/faq.asp#21

This is a link directly to the question of interest to me.

With a few new answers in hand, I think I'm ready to start assembling the final composition for the album cover. I am still in need of finding some photos for the artwork, and I am of mixed mind on this. On the one hand, there is danger in just swiping photos from the internet. If someone ever claimed ownership rights over those photos, that would be bad. However, seeing as how we're only doing 1,000 cds, I'm not sure this would ever be a problem.

I think my plan will be to go through my photos and see if I can find enough to fill in all the gaps. I probably can, though they will probably not be the EXACT photos i was hoping for. Who knows. I will see.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to find some time tomorrow to start assembling the artwork. i still need to generate text that will go inside. Not sure how that is going to come together.

Finishing The Album: Step 33 - Photo Release Form

Looks like as with most music projects, we have lost some momentum. I'm trying hard to bootstrap myself back up, but it's hard with all the other stuff going on in my life right now.

And Bill is even more under the gun than I am!

BUT, there is a breath of fresh air right now. Today I did a google search for a release form that I'm going to ask our man Jeff More to sign for the photos he has provided for cover art. I need to email them to him, get them printed and signed. So progress IS being made.

I have confirmation that Bill has recieved files, and has set up his mixing workstation. I am applying heavy and unnecessary pressure to Bill to get his mixes finished and submitted by EOM. (that's "End Of Month" for those of you who don't work for a corporation) I suppose I need to really get down to brass tacks on the album cover artwork, and make it happen. I will set aside some time this weekend to put together a final composite, minus the text.

I suppose that's it for now.

Finishing The Album: Step 32 - Files Are Mailed

I made my way down to the post office today and dropped off the two DVDs worth of source files for the album.

They should be in Bill's hands shortly.

Finishing The Album: Step 31 - Files Are Burned

This is really the last step in the big hand-off to Bill for final knob turning. Tonight I burned all of the source files and project files to DVD to be mailed out. The idea is that Bill will copy all of these files to his computer, pop open the most recent project file, and work his magic.

Any changes he makes, if he wants me to hear them, all he has to do is send me the project file. I then drop that file into the appropriate folder, open it in CuBase, and I'm off and running.

I also gave Bill my project manager speech today over txt message. Seeing as how he did not reply, I've got to believe he was unimpressed by my efforts to micro manage his time!! The basic message was "You've got until the end of the month to make changes. After that, tough toe-nails". The upside here is that any frustration Bill may feel over not having enough time to do "perfect" mix-downs is trumped by the fact that we are free to release an infinite number of mixes over the web, torrent, or whatever.

The problem as I see it is that left to our own devices, we will NEVER finish the album. The fact that the first one took us four years, and this second one has taken roughly 16 months longer than we had expected is proof of that. I honestly believe that we could tool around with this thing for the next two years and still not release it, if we allowed ourselves. I say again: Better to have a finished project that isn't perfect, than a perfect project that isn't finished.

Now, the natural counter to this is that Bill is a busy man. He's got a family, a job, and airplane, and a number of time consuming obligations. I get it. But here's my counter to THAT counter: will there ever be a day when that is NOT the case?? We must do the best with what we have got, and I believe the mixes are ALREADY really solid.

Ok, that's enough of me trying to rationalize my micro-manager stance. I hope Bill understands that my sole motivation is to get the album finished by the end of June.

Finishing The Album: Step 30 - CD In Transit

I dropped off the recently burned CD at the post this morning. It should be in california in a couple of days.

I think the next move is for me to find my 80gb external hard drive and transfer all of the files onto it, and then get that shipped out so Bill can do his knob turning voodoo. With Rockville being dropped, there's a chance all the stuff might fit on a DVD or two. I suppose that would make transfer a little easier.

Finishing The Album: Step 29 - New CD Is Burned

I lined all the songs up in iTunes, and got ready to burn a new CD. I needed to make some changes, and came up with this order:

On the road
april
Big Tin Truck
Armageddon Is Here
The Friend That I Once Knew
Bordered In Black
Above You
Drinks Are On Me
The Second Time Around
Girl #134
Let Me Be Your Guitar Player
Come My Way

The CD has been burned, and will be going into the mail tomorrow.

While I was listening to the songs one more time, I noticed something that bugged me, which I had previously forgotten. On the acoustic introduction for "The Second Time Around", one the first sustained note, there is a little click. Maybe it's the pick hitting the pick guard or something. That always bugged me. So I went into cubase and removed it. nice. All set.

Finishing The Album: Step 28 - Finished The TODO List

It took about 90 minutes, but I attended to all of the to-do items that I found while listening to the album on my iPod during my trip to Manhattan.

Next steps and take-aways: load them onto your ipod again and give them a listen. I should probably also burn a CD tonight and get that rolling.

Finishing The Album: Step 27 - On The Road Polishing.

Filled with renewed enthusiasm after this weekends listening party, I raced home at lunch to not only try to figure out my exporting problems, but also to tackle the opening drum hits on "On The Road".

The way I have the songs laid out, OTR opens the album. I think it's a great opener because it's not only a strong song, but also because it really sets the themes up for the entire album. I also really like the fact that right out of the gate, it hits you with that rapid fire, machine-gun like drum intro. It tells the listener "this album ain't for jokes". It puts them on notice that this shit just got real.

Sorry, I'm channeling an album reviewer for "LA Weekly" right now. Please excuse the last paragraph.

BUT, with all joking aside, I still think OTR is a great album opener, for a number of reasons, the main one being that it's a great song. And sets the tone. ok, so that's two reasons.

But the thing that bothers me about it is that those opening snare strikes that I'm so proud of are a little unevenly spaced. It's very subtle, but it's there. It is uneven. I figured that if that is going to be the first thing an audience hears when they listen to this ablum, it had better be dead on.

I got home and had less than an hour to fix the drums. Luckily, it took about two minutes. I know I go on and on about how great CuBase is, but man... it just never disappoints. To make a long story short, I just took four of the hits from later in the intro and grafted them over the two spots where there was some problems. It's seamless, and it sounds great. Spot on.

I spent the next 45 minutes dorking around trying to figure out why the export functionality was so problematic. I still have not figured it out, but the work around seems to be closing the file, closing CuBase, then opening them both back up and exporting before doing ANYTHING else.

So that's one problem fixed. Just need to burn through the other action items in my todo list, and then I will be ready to generate another CD to send to Bill. I am hoping I can get it all wrapped up tonight.

Finishing The Album: Step 26 - Review and Notes

Lest you think I took the weekend off, allow me to correct this piece of falsehood. I did travel to Manhattan over the weekend, and had a total blast. WHILE in transit, I spent a good amount of time focused on my iPod listening to the latest mixdowns of the new album, and taking copious notes. Technology really is great. When we recorded our first album, we would have to mix the stuff down to cassette, then load it into the station wagon tape deck so we could listen to it while we went to Menudo.

Now, I just dump the whole thing on my iPod after exporting from Cubase, and I am up and running. I use my iPhone to type out notes, then I email them to myself so I can view them on the PC while I am making corrections. truly amazing times we live in.

Anyhow, after listening to the entire album two times, I came up with the following notes. Typo's included. These were typed out on my iPhone while I was walking or flying.

Album notes

Drum intro for otrh
More bell vocals on april
April can hear background singing on"and i thought that i heard you laughing"

Some slopppy bass drum on intro for btt.
Little more vocals on btt.
Drum fill right before drop a few shack
Very last cymbal crash seems a tad too early

Transition from armageddon to sta is a little shicking. Order issue

Drum hit right befor "as if thr thought hadnt croased" is a little off

Bordered in black is blank

Drym hits before "now the evenings rolling" on dribks. The one before the last "smoke filled roon" is perfect.

Drum fill bedore "i made a game" is choppy. Hits are timed right, but too much silence

Friend is blank

More fischer vocals on guitar. Needa more body.

The experience of listening to the album on the iPod is VERY different than listening to it on my PC. Not only do I have different speakers, but there is ambient noise in the room, the sound bounces around, etc. The iPod earphones are right in my ear. Also different being in an airport, the car, or an airplane. So while I do not use one specific environment as my test bed, I find that switching it up can reveal weak points.

As you can see from the notes, my focus was really on technical glitches. CuBase has some problems outputting sometimes, and I really need to be more aware of that. I would hate to go to the final pressing process and accidentally upload three minutes of blank noise, which would then appear on the CD. that would be bad.

Overall though, I think the album has REALLY come a long way in the past couple of weeks. I am REALLY down to the nitty gritty, and I am DEFINITELY in the nit picking phase. I believe that MOST of the technical flaws could easily be unattended to, and nobody would be the wiser.


Finally, in other news, while in Brooklyn I actually met up with an A&R guy from an independent record label. We had a brief discussion, but it was more of a "seed planting" effort, as I'm sure he gets that type of stuff every day. I'm not going to jam it down his throat, but when the final album goes to press, I will for sure get a copy to him. If nothing becomes of it, I'm no worse off than I am now.

Except I will be out one copy of the album.

Finishing The Album: Step 25 - More Tweaks

Tonight I took my final stabs at three songs; "The Friend That I Once Knew", "Girl #134" and "Let Me Be Your Guitar Player".

Friend had a few little things I needed to clean up, but Girl is where I spent about an hour. I once and for all fixed all the drum fills to my satisfaction. They all sound really great now, and I'm quite pleased with them. Guitar needed no additional work, and I signed off on that one after just one listen. Just a great song that really moves.

UPDATE:
After I wrote the above blog entry, I plowed ahead and banged out the last two songs in my list, "Second Time Around" and "On The Road". For Road, I grafted over a part of the refrain where I didn't quite hit the high note right. Not a big deal, as there were other parts of the song where I DID get it right. So plenty to choose from.

For STA, I just did a couple little things. For example, there's one part where I sing "I would have wished on a falling star..." whereas bill says "Would have wished on a falling star..." Bill's version skipped the introductory "I". So I did the right thing, and removed it from my performance.

SOOOOOO, this brings to an end my participation in the album mix down, for this round. To the best of my abilities, all the songs are technically cleaned up, and knobs are turned. I still expect/want Bill to take a stab at the knob turning, but I think overall it sounds really good.

My next plan is to burn another CD and get it into the mail to Bill, with it being noted that this is the latest and greatest. I suppose now would also be a good time for me to load up everything onto an external hard drive and ship it over to Torrance for aforementioned knob action.

Finishing The Album: Step 24 - Mixes, Tweaks, and Artwork

Tonight saw me being pretty productive with the mix down. I hit two songs tonight, Big Tin Truck and Bordered in Black. Again, please note that I'm just looking for technical glitches that can be fixed via cubase. So if there's a drum hit out of place, or some vocal collisions, I fix them.

In Bordered, I found that I had misplaced a tiny patch we recorded for one of the guitar pieces. I found it, re-inserted it, and cleaned up the edges so that it blended smoothly. Now that I am one step above rank amature with cubase, I find revisiting the songs is very useful, as I can use tricks and techniques that were previously unknown to me.

In other news, Jeff More emailed me high res copies of the photos I would like to use for the front and back of the album cover. They look spectacular in high res, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the final product looks.

This weekend, I took a couple of photos that are going to replace the thumbnails that are currently on the covers. I figure there are twenty or so pics that need replacing. I'm sure we will slip in a "knob hill" shot or two. I'm hoping bill will have some travel-esque pictures that he would like to contribute to that part of the ablum


EDIT:
I finished off a few more songs a bit later. Come My Way and Drinks Are On Me are also all polished up and ready for some knob turning.

Finishing The Album: Step 23 - Rockville Is Outsville

I had a brief txt exchange with Bill today as he was out getting pizza. I guess this is the way albums are to be produced in the year twenty ten. We went back and forth on a few issues, and both agreed that Rockville was not only not one of the stronger songs on the album, but also adds a layer of logistical hassles as it is a cover song.

So we are going to take it out of the final release. I'm sure it will see the light of day in a web release somewhere, but until then, you can always enjoy the music video for it that we have on youtube.

Finishing The Album: Step 22 - Last Sweep For Tech Errors

After listening to the CD this weekend on my way to Indianapolis and back, I picked up on a number of little technical glitches. Sadly, I did not write them down, so I have set myself to the task of going through each song one last time looking for little glitches that I am unhappy with, that I think can be fixed with the magic of cubase.

So far, I have worked my way through Above You, April, and Armageddon Is Here. The first two had no problems. When I got to Armageddon, I remembered something.

On many songs, I ran my voice through Autotune. It's interesting, because there's a little meter on the dashboard that shows how much "work" autotune is doing to correct the vocal track. It looks like on a lot of notes, I am a bit flat. As opposed to sharp, I mean. But sometimes, I go way out of whack, and autotune doesn't quite know what to do with it. Now, I'm sure that if I was really familiar with autotune, I could fiddle with the knobs and get to be just right. But I'm not, and I don't have the time to become a master. I find that when you put it on the default settings, it fixes 95% of the problems.

But along the way, it sometimes creates some. Like when it hits a note, which maybe is right in the middle of a specific range, and it choses the wrong direction to correct it. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but you get the idea.

In Armageddon, there were two spots where it kind of dorked up the line. It was right on "The world is gonna end today". I guess there's a not in there that is not easy for me to hit every time. Long story short, I found one of the refrains where I DID get it just right, and I grafted that part over on top of the two sections where I did it wrong. I tried un-autotuning those two parts, but it still sounded a bit wonky. I did indeed miss the note.

At the end of the day, the vocal now sounds really good, and it's all ironed out. I only did three songs tonight, and now it is time for bed. But this way, I will have some more work to do tomorrow.

Finishing The Album: Step 21 - CD In Transit

I have a tiny update as of this morning. Today I dropped off the new CD for Bill at the post office. MAN, postal rates have gone up! A single CD, with no jewel box ran $1.44! I was expecting it to be like 45 cents or something. Whatever.

Though not album related, I've sort of gotten back on my video capture kick. I guess I am getting all fired up for all things MNI right now. I made a DVD for operation mexicali, and needed some empty DVD boxes. I picked some of those up today. My goal is to have a copy of that DVD out to Bill in a few days. Should make for some good watching, even though it's terribly embarassing.

That's all I have for today!

Finishing The Album: Step 20 - New CD Burned

I spent about 2 hours tonight working on cleaning up a couple drum fills on G134. I think it sounds a lot better, but it is not perfect. CuBase is no substitute for Don Varner! Put that in your quote book, fancy boy!

Still, I think it's getting much closer.

I also re-output Above You, which was the song that showed up as blank on the CD. I burned another, new copy of the CD, and have it all packaged up and ready to ship to Bill.

I think here's what I have in mind for the final stretch of the process. I get the songs ready for the final knob turning, and bill does the final knob turning. I think a lot of the songs are really close, and wont' require much work. But who knows. My fear is that once I hand the mixes over to Bill for final knob turning, he will find himself unable to attend to them, due to the many non-trivial distractions he has in his life, like work and his family. I know, snore. :) Still, such is the facts of life.

If we are shooting for an end of June delivery, that means we should have the songs and artwork finished, packaged, and uploaded to DiskMakers by the end of May. That gives us a little over one month to get everything done.

I will take another listen to the CD and see if I can see any gaping holes. yeah, you read that right. If after the next listening, I find nothing I feel is a showstopper, I will transfer all of the files onto a drive and mail it to Bill. It will then be up to him to do his knob magic. Then he mails them back to me, I give it my once over (I doubt I will have any changes) and then we go to press.

I worry however, seeing as how over the past two weeks I have recieved few communications from Bill, and I understand there is a looming threat that he may be shipped out of country for a bit. That would certainly interfere with our plans!!! :)

Onward and upward, I suppose

Finishing The Album: Step 19 - Multiple Updates

It has been a few days since my last blog update, as I have been out of town. But there is progress.

First, I managed to listen to the CD. The same as the one I burned and sent to Bill. I have two main concerns. First is the fact that one of the songs is blank. No sound. I must have exported it wrong from cubase. That's an easy fix. The second thing I noticed is that the drums on Girl #134 need some help. There's a few fills that sound pretty clunky. I need to clean those up in Cubase. Not that big of a deal.

I think I also need to soften the base on one song. I forget the name.

I am also in contact with Jeff More, the photographer whose work we are hoping to use. I showed him the concept designs, and he likes them. Next step is to ask him for high res versions of the photos.

I picked up another padded envelope today so that I can ship bill another copy of the CD. the one that is on the way can probably just be thrown out.


UPDATE:
I've emailed Jeff and asked for the high res versions. Also, the song that is blank on the album is "Above You", and the bass line that needs some reduction is "Come My Way". I say that because it distorted the speakers in my car. Then again, it could have been my speakers.

Finishing The Album: Step 18 - CD In Transit

Not a big update, just a note to say that I have dropped the concept CD into the mail today, and it is making its way to Bill's house.

Finishing The Album: Step 17 - Mock Up Finished

Here are a couple pictures of the CD mock up I have prepared for Bill.





Inside is a CD-R that contains mix downs of all of the songs, in the order that they are listed on the jacket. I will try to get this into the mail for Bill tomorrow.

I got an email from Bill today with some feedback on the artwork and progress. Looks like he is ready to sign off on the concept and implementation, so I guess I can move forward on the final version. That's cool.

Ok, that's all I have for now.

Finishing The Album: Step 16 - Internal Artwork

After my last post, I got to thinking what if there ARE lots of liner notes and dirt we want included with the CD? Which frankly, we probably do. So I put together a concept for what the inside of the main booklet would look like. Here's what I've come up with:



As with my other concepts, the text would need to be changed, and the pictures along the bottom are simply place holders. The idea behind those photos, by the way is that they are candid travel snapshots. Pictures that document a cross desert journey.

There's also lots of room for interpretation on what those pictures should be, or what they should end up trying to convey. We could always just drop in tons of pictures of Bill and I, documenting our adventures over the years as Black and Blue. The possibilities are endless, though the concept for what is in place is travel pictures. Pictures you took while you were driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Or to Carlsbad, or something like that. Or following Route 66. You get the idea.

Finishing The Album: Step 15 - front cover concept complete

It's not DONE, but the concept is done.



Granted, there will be numerous changes to be made before we go to press. The pictures of Bill and I are temporary, and bad. The text is of course total nonsense. The thumbnail pictures along the bottom of the design will need to be replaced with pictures that we have clearance to use.

BUT, I am diggin' the overall layout and design. Depending on how much text we want to drop into the liner notes, we can probably shrink the font by a few points to fit in more. I know Bill is a fan of liner notes, but I'm thinking the web might be a good place to put those. Dunno.

Recall that as of right now, my vision is that there is NOT a booklet type fold out for the front cover of the CD. what you see above would not be printed as is and folded. It would be one sheet, with the BB part on the back, Desert on the front. If there is huge need for more liner note real-estate, we can do that. It'll just cost a bit more, take more time, etc.

I must confess though, i think it looks pretty cool.

Finishing The Album: Step 14 - Back Cover

Here is my initial stab at the back cover. I actually like it a lot. The verbage will need to be enhanced a little, but the idea is to show where it will be, not what it will say.



Of course, the order of the songs is totally tentative. That just happened to be the order I put them together in for the demo CD. SOME thought went into it, but I'm certainly not married to the order.

Finishing The Album: Step 13 - ok, I Lied

I can't resist. Here is the unfinished concept of the front jacket. I'm still not sure if this will be a folded piece, which will free up two more surfaces for art, or if this will be printed on one piece of card stock. So the BB part would be the back side, facing inwards. The desert photo would be the front, facing out.

duh.



I figure A pic of bill and his bio would go on the left hand side of the inside, and the right side would be reserved for yours truly. Or a couple pics, and some bio info. Or some random thoughts. Cuz I'm so random.

Finishing The Album: Step 12 - More Art

I spent about two and a half hours working on the artwork for the cd box. It's coming along really nicely. I don't have anything to show right now, because I'm not a fan of showing off works in progress.

But these are just concepts. They will need refining, and I'm certainly open to imput. Yeah, I said iMput. With an "M". Just like we do at the office.

Anyhow, my plan is to have the concept art finished tomorrow. I'm shooting to have a demo package all put together before I go to bed tomorrow.

Finishing The Album: Step 11 - CD and Art

I burned the CD of all of my mixdowns so far. iTunes helped. Actually, it did most of the heavy lifting.

I also downloaded a bunch of templates from the Disk Maker website for the jewel box artwork. I think we're going to go the cheap route. Have the front cover just be a two sided piece. No fold out. Back side will be one sided. So when you lift the CD out of the jewel box, you don't see any artwork. Never liked that much anyway. It's supposed to be all about the music!

I'm hoping to put together some rough artwork tonight, just so I can get a mock up CD ready to ship out to BF/Ripstick.

Finishing The Album: Step 10 - Cover Art Tweak

I wanted to see how this cover would look without all the visual noise on it, so I removed it entirely. Looks pretty clean! And if you didn't know any better, that might ACTUALLY be Bill in the foreground.

Finishing The Album: Step 9 - Finished MixDowns

Today at lunch I came home and cranked out the last few mixdowns. For the most part, I didn't really turn any knobs, just output them the MP3. Next step is to burn them to a CD, get a copy to Fischer, and listen to it myself a few times.

Finishing The Album: Step 8 - Mixdown 'Splosion

Tonight I did mix downs of each of the songs that are album bound. I made a few little tweaks to each song as necessary, but nothing major.

The real point here is to put together a collection of the best and current mixes, and get it off to Bill for listening.

In my opinion, we are in the "showstoppers only" phase of the process, which means that unless there is something CRITICALLY wrong with the song, my feeling is that we should just plow ahead.

Because sitting on our hands an analyzing this to death has gotten us really far to date.

or not.

It's A Lizard!

Ok, so this is not album related. I get that. I was goofing around on my computer tonight, and ended up doing a little video capture project. I stumbled onto the 8mm tape of "operation mexicali", which seemed like a good candidate for capture.

What was surprising was what was at the beginning of the tape.



This was really just a fun exercise to see if I could learn how to automate volume within a clip. I did.

And this is also meant to fuel Bill's fire to eventually make "Stickmen: The Movie"

For those of you who do not understand the historical significance of this clip, don't feel bad. There's probably only five or six people in the world that do.

Finishing The Album: Step 7 - Artwork and Photos

I did some playing around with Jeff's photos, since most of them are just great. Here is an example of how I just dropped a new photo into my existing template. Granted, the arrangement doesn't work perfectly with the existing text and visual noise, but you get the idea.



And for reference, here are the other photos that I consider interesting, and will take a shot at integrating them into the cover artwork.

Finishing The Album: Step 6 - Artwork and Organizing

I spent some time this evening organizing my files on my computer. I got all of the "Frankenstein" versions of the songs loaded onto my desktop, in a new folder. I do this to preserve data integrity. You know, in case something happens to my external hard drive, or if for some reason I screw up a song beyond hope, I will want a version I can revert to.

I am sad to learn that a lot of the research I did for the album cover has been lost. I originally saved off a lot of photos I found that I thought would make good cover art. I still have my master "High Desert Mystery" photoshop files, but those were really just conceptual work.

The GOOD news is that with a little google magic, I was able to find Jeff More's Flickr page, which is where I originally found so many of the photos I was considering. For reference, here is a link.

I've also decided to start adding a bit of a description to my post titles. Numbered posts will not make for good reading by future generations of fans. right?

Finishing The Album: Step 5

I finished a mix down of "Friend", and have emailed it off to Bill.

The main thing I did was straighten out the vocal tracks. There were a lot of vocal "collisions" between my two tracks and Bill's track, so I cleaned those up. Now we hit words at the same time, and hold the sustain for the same duration. Overall I think the vocals sound a million times better.

Guitar solo still isn't perfect, but with AutoTune and a Leslie filter, it's hard to notice.

Finishing The Album: Step 4

Today I finally finished something I've been meaning to do for more than a year. I fixed the guitar solo on "Friend That I Once Knew". I did it using AutoTune. I'm really not sure what all the knobs do, but with a little tooling around, I got results that I wanted. I have to say, I'm really stunned at what an amazing tool it is.

I think I will have to fight the urge to run everything through AutoTune.

Plan is to do a good mix down of Friend and email it off to Bill.

Finishing The Album: Step 3

Before I went to sleep last night, I realized I had a problem. Cubase 5 does not come packaged with a number of effects that were used by Bill on his mix of "Drinks". ModDelay, Compression, and three others were all showing as missing. I spent some time trying to find them and/or configure them, but it turned out to be too big of a pain.

Then, as I drifted off to sleep, I had a bit of a revelation.

So this morning, I removed Cubase 5, and re-installed Cubase SX. I loaded Drinks into SX, and sure enough, all of the filters were there.

The main reason I installed 5 was because it included AutoTune... or so I thought. Turns out AutoTune is a third party product that is sold separately. You can download a trial version from the website of the manufacturer here. Since it's a plug in, I have to believe Cubase sx also supports it... which it does.

So I installed AutoTune, and all is right in the world.

The only bummer is that I will need to repeat the changes I made to Drinks last night, as the cubase project files are not entirely backwards compatible. Not a big deal, as it was under an hour of work, and there was nothing I did that I could not easily repeat.

Though this constitutes "one thing" that I did toward the album today, I believe I will spend some more time this evening getting Drinks back up to speed.

Finishing The Album: Step 2

I did a mixdown of Drinks, now that I have cubase up and running. There were a lot of settings I had to mess with to get it working, but all that is behind me now.

I did a lot of doctoring to the track. I cleaned up all of the intro hits to make sure the drums and guitars sync'd up properly. Sounds great now.

Perhaps on the controversial side, I chopped off the intro, and removed one verse. The song comes in at 3:17 right now, which is a few second shy of radio worthy, if you ask me. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but some of the problems with length are obviously gone. I think it's the right length to hold a listners attention.

I'm going to email the MP3 to bill for peer review. I think it might be good. I have to confess also that the leslie speaker on the organ is great. Gives the song a good feel.

Finishing the Album: Step 1

My new plan is to do ONE THING per day towards getting the Black and Blue album finished. Even if it's just something small, I want to do one thing each and every day.

Today, I installed Cubase 5 on my PC. This is some leading edge stuff. Should be good. I also copied the "Drinks Are On Me" source files from my flash drive onto my desktop. I will probably do a little messing around with Drinks tonight.

Stay tuned.

Drinks Are On Black And Blue

This past weekend, Bill and I put the finishing touches on the long-since-percolating "Drinks Are On Me", a song written long ago, and performed only slightly less long ago for the last time.

Bill and I laid down the first few tracks for this many months ago. I want to say sometime mid last year. We had drums, vocals, and a few guitar tracks. The only thing that remained was drums and piano. Which is sort of like saying the only thing that remains in my plans to get remarried is finding a girl.

So the other day, Bill and I hit the garage running.

Actually, I take that back. I'm telling the story out of sequence. We first went to Guitar Center to check out some bass gutiars. I personally prefer to shop at Sam Ashe, just because they don't have that "Corporate bohemoth" feeling to them, and we all know how much corporate rock sucks. Right Zybul? sorry, inside joke. Anyhow, I personally have had great experience with Sam Ashe, and even better experiences with mom and pop music stores (or pop and sons, in some cases) so I'm happy to see my money go there. We tooled around with bass guitars for a while, with my opinion resting solidly on the belief that a 200 dollar bass "will be just fine", to quote VA Stryker during the recording of the My New Invention single. Bill is convinced that a mid-tier, 500+ bass is better. I will leave this one in the hands of the pros, as I have no dog in that fight. If Bill wants to buy a "nice" bass instead of a bare bones one, that's cool and I will sign off on that. Not trying to be snarky either. I mean I will actually support it, because I admit that I do not have the insight.

We also looked at some microphones, as we are hatching a plot to put together a more stable recording environment, which was kind of the long term goal of the project. The main idea is that we currently spend WAY too much time dorking around getting SET UP to record, which takes away from actual recording time. Even switching between instruments takes way too much time. So the idea is that everything is already in place when you walk into the garage. Er, I mean recording studio. So when you walk in, all you hafta do is power up, sit down, and rock. By our estimates, there are two missing components to that strategy. A dedicated microphone system for drums, and a dedicated computer for the studio. The new bass guitar is simply part of the "Get instruments that don't suck" strategy, which is decoupled from the other strategy I'm currently discussing.

So we looked at microphones, and discovered a very well priced set that is intended for mic'ing drums. That may be the one we go with. Which would be just fine with me.

We then went to costco to check out desktop computers. I'm absolutely convinced that an entry level desktop computer will more than satisfy our needs for the recording studio. I don't think Bill is convinced though. Sadly, Costco was closed as it was Easter. Whatever.

SOMEWHERE in between us leaving Bill's house and our return, a big 7.2 earthquake struck Mexicali, though somehow both Bill and I totally missed it. I'm not sure how that really happens, but it did. Neither of us felt it, though his entire family did. It's not as if it wasn't felt in that area. It was. We just didn't feel it. I have to believe we were in the car at the time, and just assumed it was engine weirdness or something.

After ALL THAT, that's when we went into the garage and started working on the song.

Bass line was first, and despite my efforts to convince Bill that "less is more", he put down a bass line that I felt was a bit too "deedle" heavy. Now I'm not telling tales out of school here, and I know that bill won't read this and say "oh, so NOW he's bustin' my chops for it!!!!!". No dear readers, there was plenty of chop busting "en suite" that day, so fear not. I'm not going to belabor the point, because it just doesn't matter, but I felt that there was already a lot going on in the song, and yet another instrument doing "solo" like riffs seemed out of place. TO add insult to injury, Bill took the same approach with the keyboard!!!! LOL. so now we have three guitar tracks, a bass track and a piano track, all of which are essentially playing a "lead" riff. Too funny. Again, not trying to bust chops, just reporting events as they happened. Bill and I talked about it, and I think we just disagreed. Back to my "no dog in this fight" comment I made earlier, I guess I felt the same way about this song. Though I think it's a good song, it's not worth making a big stink over and bruising frayed nerves. I trust Bill as a musician, and his instincts are good for stuff like this. So even though I think differently, I'm willing to defer to whatever thoughts are going through Bill's heads.

See? How's that for a nice little bit of diplomacy to wrap up what was turning into a smack-down of a write up????

It was then my turn to work my cubase magic. I went into the song and doctored up the parts that were a tad out of sync. I removed a few little errors, cleaned up some junk, and just cleared up the timing on a few hits. Just techinical stuff that the casual listener probably would not have noticed.

We tweaked some knobs and settings for a bit, then output an MP3 for our listening pleasure. And that was about the end of that. I have all the cubase files on a flash drive, and plan on giving it some more attention when I get back to Ohio, but I would say for the most part, this song is finished.

In retrospect, after listening to it, I am beginning to feel that this is one of those songs whose value lies not in it's essential goodness, but instead in its nostalgia. The performances are solid, and it makes me smile, but I'm not convinced it's a good song. It goes on about 2 minutes too long, with lyrics that aren't clever enough to be worth waiting for. There's also pretty much no sense of variety in the music, without a solo or middle 8 to speak of. Naturally, not every song requires that, especially when the narrative of the song is compelling enough to hold the listeners interst throughout. I just don't feel like this song has that. I will listen to it a few more times to try to be a little more disconnected from it, but I think out of ALL of the songs we have slated to go on the album, this would be my first choice to cut and release as a web special. Maybe I will try cutting out two verses and bringing it down to three and a half minutes or something. Not sure.

Anyhow, with all of that said, I don't want readers to think for one second that it was not a whole ton of fun putting this thing together and getting it done. It's one that has been on deck for ten or more years now, and it's really rewarding to see a studio quality version of it finally finished. The whole experience also got me re-pumped for recording more songs.

Ok, that's all I've got for now. carry on, true believers!

Gave Him an Inch and Now He Thinks He's a Star

A new dental promo/testimonial video with the music of Black and Blue is up over at mattmunson.com, conveying persuasively the orthodontic skill of one Dr. Hutta.

The video is short, but sweet, featuring some classic Munson "hamming!"

Background music is "Bordered in Black" from the forthcoming Black and Blue CD "High Desert Mystery."

Perhaps "Dr. Brumbacher (and his Tools of Torture)," while more thematically relevant, just wasn't in the cards message-wise.

Impressive, Most Impressive

I have not been blogging much over here, so it's a true treat to see some SERIOUSLY deep archival material surfacing. "Classic stickmen" indeed. Not only is that picture da bomb (yo), but so is that list of all gigs. Is that really ALL gigs, both real and imagined??

Amazing stuff Bill Fischer. Glad to see that after all these years, your role as band archivist is still being treated with the urgency and necessity that it deserves. Great stuff man.

Now go build an airplane!