Rockville Single Release Update

It took a full week for the distribution outfit to get the new single into the hands of the all the online stores.  A bunch of that involved vetting of the file integrity and the artwork, but it still took several days after that was done, which was yesterday.

Now each store will take a variable number of days to actually make the single available for download.  For example:

• iTunes/Apple Music: 1-7 days or sooner, often same-day.
• Spotify: up to 5 days
• Google Play: about 3 days
• Amazon: 2-4 days
• Pandora: 1-2 weeks
• Deezer: 1-2 weeks

Black & Blue R.E.M. Cover Single Release: (Don't Go Back to) Rockville

Today marks the official release of a digital single from Black & Blue: a studio recording from 2008 covering R.E.M.'s classic track from Reckoning, penned by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe. 

The single will be available on:

Amazon

Apple Music

Instagram/Facebook

Google Play/YouTube

iHeartRadio

iTunes

Pandora

Spotify

... and a few others

Swamptooth Live!

After years of dorking around, the mysterious musical entity called "Swamptooth" finally took the stage on 9/28/2011 at Old Torrance Coffee & Tea, to perform a handful of acoustic songs, open-mic style.  On this occasion - its public debut - the "band" was reduced to just the absolute core lineup: me, and my guitar!

Standing in for "Swamptooth" in this photo is a blues guitar player named Jesse, who borrowed my Martin for a few songs of his own, 'cause his own guitar was pretty awful.

It was a warm autumn night, and the crowd was maybe 15-20 local characters, split evenly between youngsters and fogies.  Everyone was laid back, attentive, and friendly, so the music got a good reception. 

Songs performed:

1. Moonshine Blues
2. Blackbird
3. Miller's Cave
4. Hurricane Days
5. Sing Me Back Home
6. Blackbird (encore/request)

Quite a while after my set, one lady wanted to hear Blackbird again, so I was asked to return to the stage, which of course I did.  I got a lot of compliments on that number.  The other song that went over quite well was Miller's Cave, which I hadn't even planned to do.  Moonshine Blues, on the other hand, was slow, with dark subject matter and some technical problems associated with my first-ever use of fingerpicks in a live setting.  I would probably skip that one in future.

This was my first public musical performance in several years.  So, yeah, I was a bit nervous beforehand.  But having done it, I don't know why I waited so long.  It was quite fun to do, and turned out pretty good!

I think Matt would dig it here; OTC&T would be a perfect whistle stop for Black & Blue, and is totally in spec for a Swamptooth extended testing ground.  So I would DEFINITELY like to play here again.

Another Round

All of the mixes I've done over the past couple of days came with me to the gym tonight. I have a few more notes that I took that I need to implement, but overall, I think things are really coming together. I think for my next test, I'll put together a playlist that shuffles between BNB songs and songs from legit albums. Mainly just to check overall volume. I want to see how close to the mark we are.

There's a couple more tiny technical nits to clean up, but it's getting cleaner and cleaner. Very exciting times.

Starting Another Mix Down Cycle

Today, I finished making the changes to the mixes that I wanted to make after the first listening. I then took them to the pool in my iPhone and ran through them all. Two had export errors, so that wasn't much help.

As for the other songs, it's really just an iterative process. The things I fixed now sound really good, but new things have been revealed that I want to fix. Overall, the volume needs to come down on most of the songs. Easy fix. There's a couple songs that have some vocal stuff that needs tightening up, and my biggest pain are the drum fills that are a little sloppy.

But overall, good progress so far. I've taken tons of notes, loaded them into the spreadsheet, and I will begin work on them soon. I'm thinking I might take a break for the rest of the day, and come at it with fresh ears tomorrow.

Come My Way Change Log

Knowing what a detail hound Bill Fischer is, I thought he would get a kick out of the meticulous change log notes I took today while tweaking Come My Way. I fully realize that at this point, I'm delving into the realm of absurdity with all of the minor tweaks I am doing, but I figure since I have the opportunity, I may as well make it as good as it can be. Which of course, is THE trap we fall into that ends up making our albums take four years to produce. Sigh. The good news is, all of this work only took about an hour, and I did it on my lunch break from work, so it's not a big deal. In my mind, the song sounds 100% better with all of the bass notes ironed out and playing more smoothly. I also fixed a drum fill glitch which had always bugged me. It's probably one of those things where 99% of the listening audience would never even notice, but oh well.


Come my Way - grafted drumfill at 1:32:210 from 1:38:930, correcting a minor timing glitch
Come My Way - 1:33:514 - did some moving of two bass hits that were slightly out of timing with the drum fill
1:45:579 - grafted in a bass hit and time stretched it. Initially, this was a bad note in the performance. Actualy, it was the right note, just barely played. I found the same note, plugged it in, and time stretched it to the proper duration.
1:56:100 - time compression on one bass note. Start of note hit now lines up with drum strike. Duration shrunk so as not to cause ripple effect
2:08:206 - moved bass hit to the right a tiny smidge to line up with drum hit
2:08:939 - moved bass hit to the right for timing fix
2:10:234 - used time stretch to move beginning of bass hit to align with drum strike. Time stretch used because the note was held a long time, and moving it would have made it collide with next bass note
2:21:145 - Bass hit moved to align with drum strike
2:20:255 - bass hit moved to the right for timing
2:24:771 - Time stretch done on bass hit to compress it in order to line it up with a drum strike
2:54:484 - grafted on a bass strike to cover up what was a flubbed note. Same error made in original recording at 1:45:578. Even grafted in the same bass note as before.
3:04:294 moved bass hit to the left slightly to fix timing error
3:22:051 - TINY move of bass hit to fix timing.
3:07:301 - move of bass hit for timing
4:12:357 - grafted in first two bass notes from another part of the song (2:35:396) to fix timing issues.
4:13:940 - time stretch done to bass hit to make it align with drum strike
4:19:221 - reposition of bass part (two notes) move to the left a tad to align with first drum hit. Time stretch applied to make both hits line up with two drum strikes.
4:26:975 - time compression applied to single bass note for timing purposes
4:31:372 - Time stretch applied to note to make the beginning of it line up with drum srike
Saved new file as Come_My_Way May 6 2011
0:14:490 - time compression on first bass note to align with drum strike
Deleted silence/line hiss at the beginning of the song prior to first bass hit. (on bass track only)
0:24:256 - time stretch on bass line. VERY tiny one, to bring it into sync
00:25:328 - moved bass hits over to align with drum strikes. To the right.
0:39:787 - bad bass line. Took a a few bars from :21:712 and grafted them in at target location
Copied a bass fill from 0:57:861, and grafted it over a sloppy bass fill at
Copied bass fill from 1:12:275 and pasted over 1:15:869
Project saved, and output Wav file for review.

Song Work For Today

I have knocked a few songs off the ToDo list this afternoon. I made some changes to April, Armageddon, and Big Tin Truck. Basically, whatever it was that I noticed in my recent listening, I fixed. I'll post a laundry list of the exact changes made later. But yeah, work continues.

First Listen Through of Most Recent Mixes

Today at the pool, while working on my tan, I listened to the mix downs I made last night of what I chose as the most "current" mixes of the album. Overall, VERY good, and I'm quite proud of where we stand right now. It really has come down to the nitty gritty. Here are the notes I took as I listened:

April - Very last beat is sloppy.

Armageddon - Intro is messed up. Could be an export problem. Overall, too loud. Vocal clipping in many parts. Bass drum too heavy. Bass guitar too quiet. Very end of song is sloppy. "nobody left" vocal part has some problems.

Big Tin Truck - Timing problems on "Drop a few shacks" Vocal dissonance on "think about"

Bordered In Black - no issues

Come my Way - Bass could use some timing tweaks, throughout. "No one knows" vocal volue spike/clipping

Drinks - Intro high hat, not sure if it should be there. If so, it needs some timing fixes.
Overall, vocals are low in the mix. Keyboard is too high in mix. Overall, more vocals compared to all other instruments. "Shine your shoes" verse has some sloppy vocal stuff.

Friend - Some sloppy drum fills. Guitar solo too low in mix

Girl 134 - More bass. Tad more piano. Drum error at the very end of the song needs to be corrected

On The Road - Deedles at the end louder

Second Time Around - Intro guitar needs more volume. Louder overall. "You were just beggin" line needs some clean up. Overall, more volume.

I'm still totally in the dark about Guitar Player, but I'll get to that eventually. Overall though, there really isn't that much work to do. Some technical clean up, and some minor adjustments.

iPhone Is Loaded

I output almost every song, and have transferred it to my iPhone. This will allow me to listen to the entire album in a reproduceable environment.

The only song I did not transfer over is Guitar Player, as I suspect that the most recent version of the CuBase file is not the version Bill wants included on the album. It seems more like a work in progress. Same is true for Armageddon, which had the drum tracks muted. I unmuted them and output, but that is not very reassuring. I will definitely need to confirm with Bill which versions of the files he wants used for final mixes.

Next steps: listen to all of the mixes, take notes, and go from there.

Sorted Out

I made some good progress on the logistics of the album tonight. I have installed Cubase, and went through all of the song folders to find the most recent version of each song. I've also updated my spreadsheet so I can keep track of which file is the version I'm doing to be using for the final knob-turning.

The question that remains in my mind, which I feel I should get a solid answer for before proceeding is this: are Bill's most current versions the ones he wants used on the album? Or could it be the case that for some of the songs, the most recent version is just a tangent he was pursuing? A less traveled path that ultimately did not work out??

Music Video Proof Of Concept Under Way

Another thing I'm sort of dorking around with in the background is preparation for the first official music video to go with the release of the album. Though I am unsure which song will be the opener, I'm doing some technical tests to see if I can accomplish certain effects using Adobe Premiere Elements 9. The reason I'm using Elements instead of CS3 is because Elements 9 supports the HD files that come straight off my camera. CS3 does not. And while I'm more familiar with CS3, and it's feature set is richer than Elements, I have yet to find something in CS3 that cannot be accomplished in Elements. I think this is a fine application of the 80/20 rule. For all of the functionality that is required by a novice editor like myself, it is easily covered with the functionality of a "light weight" program like Elements 9.

I'm sure there are a number of advanced things that cannot be done in Elements, but for my purposes, it works just fine.

I recently made a video for a convention I attended the other week named "Wizard World," which was my first successful test of true HD video for YouTube. It took a lot of work, patience and trial and error to get to this point, but I'm really excited to finally be able to edit HD video without having to down convert it to SD. And the video quality is just stunning, so I'm very happy.

The effect I'm trying to duplicate right now is something that is very common to music videos. Basically, the trick is that they speed up the music, and then play it back during filming. Lip sync is done to the sped up music. Then, in post production, you slow the music AND the video down to normal speed. The end result is a sort of ethereal looking video that seems sort of out of phase with reality. If you're unfamiliar with the effect I'm describing, I'm confident that you will recognize it when you see it. It's totally over used. Which is why we simply MUST have it in our first video!

I'm also testing the effect in the opposite direction. What happens when you slow the music down for the play back and lip sync?

So far, I've prepared a number of sound clips that are either slowed down or sped up to a number of different speeds. Now I just need to film some footage and see how it all works out. I will of course post a link to the final results once I have some test footage filmed.

Organizational Announcements

With a lot of logistical details behind me, I'm finally settling in for the final stretch on the production and eventual release of the Black and Blue album.

It has definitely been a long road, one much longer than I originally anticipated. I'm sure Bill feels the same way. As has been mentioned before, both on this blog and off, I think the real lesson learned here is that the old saying about "out of sight, out of mind" applies to BNB. My departure to Ohio definitely put a kink in the plans. I truly believe that had I remained in Orange County, things would have materialized much faster.

Spilled Milk.

With that mea culpa behind me, work begins.

Last weekend, I swiped/swooped all of the cubase files from Bill that he has worked on. I recently transferred them all to my PC. I also started a spreadsheet to track progress on each song. I call it a "Change Control Log." This will help me keep track of the things I do to each song, and also which file is the most current version. Right now, we have multiple copies of songs floating around on my hard drive, and I want to make sure I'm using the most current version.

For this I will be making some assumptions. I'm basically going to be using all of Bill's files as the benchmark. If there were songs he did not make any changes to, this simply means that the mixes we have to date are the ones we are going with, minus any adjustments to the master volume. I will also assume that the most recent version of Bill's files that he DID make changes to is the one that he wants included in the album. If this assumption is incorrect, it will need to be corrected quickly.

My sincerest hope is that the primary effort here will simply be one of adjusting master volume. I may need to do some retro corrections to things where perhaps Bill did not understand what I was hoping to accomplish, and accidentally undid. Of course, these will require a BNB T-Conf to remediate.

My last deliverable for tonight is to install CuBase on my PC. I recently did a full Hard Drive wipe after I started experiencing problems. Maybe it was just getting old, I don't know, but it's back up to speed now.

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.