April 2, 2003: Working on the packaging, etc. I'll be mailing out disks to you guys tomorrow. April 1, 2003: It is three-thirty in the morning. The last two tracks are finished. I'm going to bed. I'll start burning discs tomorrow, boys. March 30, 2002: Remixed No Place Like Home and Bootycall Haiku. Compressed them, ready for album. I am officially abandoning track four. It's only thirty seconds long of undistinguished jam. Got partial words for Suspicious Crotches and Track Five. We're into the homestretch. March 21, 2003: Getting there. Seventeen tracks finished, counting Tims solo & Dancing Queen as two tracks. A few instrumentals and one outbreak of words, and we'll been done with this sucker. Not sure what I can do with two of the instrumentals, they're not really long enough to work with. March 20, 2003: Got to take an hour today and add some keyboard tracks, percussion, and vocal lines. I'm trying to get this finished in the next two weeks. Added boards and percussion to Taco Trailer. Filled it out nicely. Mixed it down, listening to it now. March 18, 2003: Working on Timmy Bear's solo/Dancing Queen. Got a decent mix out, and worked with a few twists. Added more gtrs and keys to fill out the disco vibe. Damn, but our boy can play the skins, man. We've got to turn him loose more. Got Tim's Solo ready for compression. Remixed main lines of I'm a Believer. I had the backing keys up too high on certain things, had to dig through old mixes to find the point where I broke off. Funny, I thought I was keeping the on-line journal to keep track of what changes I made and where I kept them. Maybe I'll do a better job on the next album of paying attention. Remixed down I'm A Believer. Saved it as believer_master_03. Compressed WILF and Tims Solo/Dancing Queen. March 16, 2003: Back to the lab again. Pool came down and redid some vocals on What I'm Looking For and I'm A Believer. Started work patching the vocals together, which was made rather difficult by the fact that I have no idea what I did to the original vocals to make them sound like they do. I'm working on it right now, I think it'll sound alright. If that's actually a word. Also arranging the guitar parts. When it's over WILF will have 7 vocal lines, drums, keys, bass, and 6 guitars. Whew. Running a test mix of WILF, to see how it sounds. It's getting a bit complicated to run these tracks simultaneously. After a listen, I decided to remix the vocals again. The background vocs were overpowering Pool's lead. Can't let that happen. Mixed down WILF, needs compressing. A while back I wrote some words for Track three. It's now "No Place Like Home." January 24, 2003: Remixed Gimme Some Water. Compressed Gimme Some Water. Worked on Tim's Solo/Dancing Queen. I 've got the solo portion ready with a little flange and drop-outs. I think the song needs some keyboards, though. Just as a side note, through our first eleven tracks (as finished above), we have 35:03 of music. Counting instrumentals. there are still ten tracks to finish if they all make the album. January 23, 2003: I had plenty of stuff written, but my Dreamweaver program crashed and I lost it. Just hang along with me. Upon further review, Overkill needed remixing with the banjo part. Taco Trailer needs vocal work and extra percussion. Remixed Overkill with banjo. Overkill is ready for compression. Added vocals and mixed to Change of Heart. Change of Heart is ready for compression. Compressed Change of Heart, Communication Breakdown,Overkill, and Reacharound. December 18, 2002: Spent most of the day jacking with my Christmas present from my folks, a new laptop. However, I can't get the two to communicate, so it's uselss to me until then. The computers will go into the shop tomorrow. Compressed Taco Trailer & Vapor Trails. They're ready for the album. December 17, 2002: Working on Taco Trailer. Got a good mix out of it by doubling and augmenting the vocals. Added TLR line at beginning. Had to edit every snort, sneeze, and background mumble out of TLR's solo. We were a bit noisy in the background. Taco Trailer is ready for the compression cycle. Compressed Taco Trailer, I'm a Believer, & Throw Your Arms. All are ready for the album. Started on Change of Heart. Had to fix vocals on last chorus, a bit flat. Punched in second chorus over it, sounds good. Doubling background vocals, panning hard l/r.When you guys here the first verse, you can hear TR clicking the clip on the headphones. Needs another vocal line over the bridge, I'll add that later. Worked briefly on acoustic instrumental I had. It might fit when I'm done. It's called Vapor Trails. Vapor Trails is ready for the compression cycle. Worked on Gimme Some Water, fixed backing vocals. Gimme Some Water is ready for the compression cycle. December 16, 2002: Worked on Reacharound. Mixed down, found new vocal compressor, works like $%^ing gangbusters. Doubled background vocals, wiped the full left & right, doubles the sound. Added soundbite to start and end. Saved as reacharound_master_01. Reacharound is ready for the compression cycle. Just as a note to you guys, this may be the last time I have to work on this for a while, or I may have a ton of time. Not sure, so don't worry. Started on Taco Trailer. For some reason, the main mix is in mono, and there's a problem with echo on Pool's voice (with his guide track). I'm amping up the main line and adding a counterline from the same line to overcome that. Tried to save, big troubles again with computer. December 15, 2002: Worked on Believer. Fun song, man. Mixed two keyboard tracks, two vocals tracks to simplifiy.Mixed master and keyboards together, changed mix with vocals and solo. Saved mix as believer_master_01wav. I'm a Believer is ready for the compression cycle. December 14, 2002: Added new brushed snare line to Overkill, remixed. Saved as overkill_master_02.wav. Overkill is ready for the compression cycle. Listened To "Track One". There are two other short instrumental tracks I can pull off of this one (two other songs snippets, about a minute long each). Saved Track Two as track two_01_ses. Saved Track Three as track three_01_ses. Also discovered two other instrumental tracks, saved them as track four and five. Compressed on Boys of Summer, Memphis, and Seen The Rain. All are ready for the album. December 12, 2002: Worked on vocals for BoS. Added "Rich Double" Delay to Evatt's vocals. Added Flap's vocals "Vocal - Nice Presence" Reverb, then small "Lite Flange". Saved as Summer_03.ses. Mixed everything, added vocals, saved as summer_master_01. Boys of Summer is ready for the compression cycle. Worked on Memphis, added FX to extra rhythm part. Comped the vocs/gtr, readded it to mix. Saved it as memphis_master_01. Memphis is redy for the compression cycle. Added the grid at the top of this page, to help me visualize where I'm going (and help you guys keep up with same). Worked on Breakdown. Added echo to TLR Vocals ( Midtones Following Echo, 30/800/20). Removed same. Added Loudness EQ. Added same echo (40/800/65). Added EQ to TLR solo, then Multitap Reverb and Leslie sound. Sounds pretty damn good for right now. Comunications Breakdown is ready for the compression cycle. Throw Your Arms: Added warm room echo to bongos.Re mixed echo GTR line. Added "Big Vocals" Parametric EQ to main line. Saved as arms_master_02. Throw Your Arms is ready for the compression cycle. Seen The Rain: Added piano line behind chorus, sent through Filter to dupe telephone sound. Mix sounds real good. Saved as rain_master_01. Seen the Rain is ready for the compression cycle. Overkill: Added EQ (Big Vocals Parametric EQ) to main line. Doubled main line, added high EQ and slow leslie sound, buried on left side. Dropped click track 1/2 octave. Didn't like it, removed 1/2 octave drop. Remixed bass line. saved as overkill_master_01. Overkill is ready for the compression cycle. December 11, 2002: Worked on Boys of Summer. Need to reverb the vocals, otherwise it's ready. December 2, 2002: Worked on vocals for Reacharound. December 1, 2002: Started on Reacharound, my favorite song ever about gay hand jobs. Silenced the extra tracks. Memphis is almost ready for the compression cycle, all that needs to be added is the effects to the extra rhythm part. November 26, 2002: What a horrendous month it's been, fellas. Back to the lab again. Worked on Boys of Summer. Flap's second harmony vocal had a weird, backmasked sound to it because of either a computer glitch or demonic possession. Am assuming the former. Fixed it, restored mix. Added Reid's Big Un Delay (105/87) to Evatt's vocals. Computer glitched again, lost the vocals completely. Lost the session, will have to recreate if possible. Worked on Bring Me Some Water. Added Presence Reverb to Vocals. Copied backing vocals to the entire song. After much debate, removed the "Hey Hey What Can I Do" part from the end of the song. Bring Me Some Water is ready for the compression cycle. Worked on Memphis. Sorted through the extra guitar parts and solos to find what works as rhythm, solo, and not. Copied one rhythm part over and over to fill out choruses. I've got that placed the way I want it, now I need to change the sound of the guitar to make it blend in better. November 3, 2002: Worked on TTTYAATW. EQed bass line, added delay. Changed mix slightly to bring up original vocals. November 1, 2002: Worked on Trying To Throw Your Arms Around the World. EQ backing vocals, because the shaker was on the same track. Doubled main part, with different EQ and delay, panned left. Took leftover funky part, added slap-back delay and strange pan, buried it on second verse. October 30, 2002: Started working on Seen The Rain. Copied Bass track, comped it to 66%.Add EQ (Bass EQ - Parametric EQ). Recomped it back 66%, removed original track.Doubled Master track, changed EQ and added delay. Dubbed down GTRs, drums, and bass to str_11. Saved as str_02.ses. After EQ (Vocal I), added Slow Attack Verb delay to Evatt's vocals. Removed SAVerb delay (too much). Added new delay. Recombined master track with high eq and slow leslie sound 75% left, dropped in mix. Song could use one underlying keyboard track. Added manual echo to "water". October 25, 2002: Edited silence on Gimme Some Water. Added doubled rhythm track, EQ and Flange. Started auditioning EQ settings for vocals.
October 19, 2002: Started work on Boys of Summer. Edited silence between the cuts on background vocals. Editing out dead spots makes for a quieter mix, plus it helps me get a true sound on the delay and EQ I'll add later. Edited silence on Lead Vocals also. Added EQ to master as such:
October 18, 2002: Having major computer problems with transfering files. Something will have to be done. October 17, 2002: Began this on-line production diary to keep everyone up to date on the new album. Last Friday, I listened to rough mixes of most of the songs on a trip to Marshall for a football game (Marshall 7, Hallsville 0). I dictated noted into a recorder while I listened to the songs on headphones. I felt quite Phil Spector. In short, the whole album sounds great, easily our most professionally produced album ever. Of course, that means it'll take longer to work the bugs out of it, but it should be pretty good once that happens. Check back every couple of days to see how it's coming. |
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