April 20: Done. Working on the covers. April 18: Experimented with compression with Cool Edit and SAW32. I'm using CE for the master echo (just a slight bounce to give it a roomy sound), but I still think SAW32 gives me better control over compression and normalizing. I have decided on a master echo and compression for the album, so I can assembly line these suckers through and get them ready. I've got fifteen tracks done, three (or maybe four) to go. For future reference, I get a good master mix of the song, then I take it and add a small amount of echo (Left - 20ms delay, 7% feedback, 50% strength Right - 16ms delay, 5% feedback, 40% strength). That smoothes things out and gives it a "recorded live" feel. Then I use SAW32's compression and normalization, which is where I basically show SAW32 the low part of the song and have it bring everything else up. So Lonely is ready to go, working now on Soul Inspiration. I'm using Tim's VX, I'm thinking of putting the alternate take I did on the next in-between album. Tired. Going to bed. April 17: Sixteen tracks done, but not mastered. I mixed a CD today and rode around, taking notes on final things to fix. Substitute is great, just needs to readd the bass line. Walk Of Life is good, just fixing the vocal mix. Notorious Girl, I've readded the guitar/bass track with different EQ. Soul Train, more of Evatt's harmony vocal. Started normalizing tracks to 96% for masters. Normalized Soul Train and No Exit. April 16: Production continues. I have come to the conclusion that I need to raise the bass line on She Don't like Me and Guitar Town. Also working with a take of Joan Of Arc that Tim and I cut. Guitar Town redone, bass line readded to mix. She Don't Like Me redone as well, bass line reintroduced. So Lonely produced, sped up slightly. April 15: Back to work. I bought my house today, by the way. Mixed down Walk Of Life. Worked on Guitar Town. Had three separate lead guitar lines, cut and faded to get the best overall sound. I did some chicken-picking to disguise the lack of quality equipment on the lead line. April 14: Added keys to So Lonely and extra guitar to Guitar Town. I believe I have added all the extra instrumentation I need. On to the final mixing. Walk Of Life is so friggin huge that I'm going to have to make three separate mixes and assemble them together. Three instruments, three keyboards, and four vocals tracks all together. April 13: Working on So Lonely. It needs keyboards. April 12: Mixed Bass & Drum beat, Tim called it No Exit because it went on forever. It only went 7:46. Guitar Town is a major pain in the @#$^%. I think we missed something. I've tried to punch that solo in a dozen times, including just dragging it and dropping it, and I can't find it. I think we @$%ed the dog on this one, boys. I'm going to sleep on it, then maybe overdub a separate guitar part tomorow. It won't be Steve Earle, but it might be Earl Scruggs. Started work on the Rundown instrumental, also on So Lonely. It looks like HOH will be eighteen tracks, fellas. I've got a few other things I'm looking at, but I probably will just leave them off the finished product and put them on the next in-between-album-album, if that's okay with you guys. April 11: Mixed Soul Train to great difficulty. I had to piece together all the music, plus doubling and tripling the vocals. I think it works , though. Sounds really good. April 10: Mixed When Doves Cry, remixed Substitute, contiunued work on Soul Train. April 9: Added vocals, drums, and guitars where needed. Some of these songs are taking longer than I thought because we've got a lot more tracks going than the previous album. My poor steam-powered computer is slowing down. After further listening, I'm going to remix Substitute. The vocals aren't meshing like I want them to. In several passes, mixed down She Don't Like Me. Added and remixed a snare drum into Fine Fine Day. I think that puts it over the top from "moody" to "blow the back of your head off depressing." April 8: Finished Notorious Girl, mixed vx and music separately. April 7: Worked on Fire & Lightning. Mixing instruments, then vocals. Ready to go. Went back, worked more on One, got the instrumental mix I wanted. then remixed the vocals, sounds great. April 5: Started big-time producing. Produced Fine Fine Day and No Exit (the bass & drums instrumental). Produced Guitars Cadillacs. Worked a long long time on One. April 4: Added a whole bunch of keyboard parts. April 3: Came back to the album after Evatt came up and cut a few more tracks. March 28, 2004, we cut Copperhead Road and Valerie Loves Me. They'll appear on the next album. Laid a faux bass on One. Added clean GTR to She Dont Like Me. Converted a whole bunch of stereo tracks to mono to save space. My little computer's getting tired. Finished (exept for compressing) Guitars, Cadillacs. March 9: Boy, I'm tired fellas. I'm taking stock of what needs what extra instrumentation.
Compressed the VX on Fire & Lightning. Inverted and phased the keys on When Doves Cry. March 3: Exit is finished. Started NRing Fine Fine Day. March 2: Got a decent mix of Substitute ready. Working on Exit now. NRed main track, saved it to a separate track just in case. NRed Pools vx and Evatt's vx. Found another track of Evatt's vocals, added some killer distortion and readded it to the mix. Also used my low vx and an extra guitar. Got everything together except for some feedback and echoes and stuff over the rideout. February 29: Came back to the album. Silenced both Tim's vx on Substitute. I also converted them to mono. I'm doing that with all the vocals and things recorded in mono. That way it'll be easier on my computer's processing speed. Silenced the bass. Compressed the backup vx. Worked on adding another gtr/drums mix to the overall mix to try and get more drums. We need more of Tim. January 27: Tried to elongate Soul Train, finally got it working. I hated to have to do it this way, but I couldn't find the longer version Tim and I cut. It'll sound fine. I've had to build Pool's vocal line and the GTR/drums line piece by piece. I also started replacing the bass line. January 26: Worked on balancing out the vocals for Hawkmoon. After using Pool's new computer, I am painfully aware of how slow mine processes things. Silenced the background vocals. Mixed all the instruments, then reduced them to a single track. Then I did the same with the vocals. Did a pass-through on Hawkmoon, adjusting the volumes. Mixed it down and saved it in the Master file. It still needs to be compressed, but it's done otherwise. Mixed I Can See It... in the same way, got it down to a single file ready for compression. Two down, fellas. January 25: NRed Hawkmoon. Silenced Pool's vocal track, converted all non-stereo files to mono to save space. I'm going to finish this one first. Silenced Evatt's main track. Added Reverb to Pool's vocal. Distorted and buried one of Pool's previous vocal tracks for effect. January 24: Added keys to Hawkmoon. Added keys to When Doves Cry. Actually, I just played twenty seconds of an A and looped it. Added keys (rhythm and lead) to No Exit. January 23: Split the track on I Can See It In Your Eyes, NRed the tracks. January 22: Experimented with noise reduction. I'm supposed to be able to take a track, identify the noise on it (mic hiss, background hum, etc.), tell the computer what to register as noise and then strip it out of the file. Holy #%$@, it works. This changes everything. To do this, select a track (like Evatt's vocals on Fire & Lightnin'). Bring the track up in the wave screen, then select a part of it where there's no sound, only background noise. Then go to Effects->Noise Reduction->Noise Reduction. Then select "Get Profile", close out of it and unselect the noise by clicking anywhere else on the track. Then go back to Effects->Noise Reduction->Noise Reduction and click OK. It's time consuming on my old computer, but it sounds great. Or actually, it doesn't sound bad anymore. I noise-redded all three tracks for Fire & Lightnin'. I'll do more tomorrow. Gentlemen, I think we've taken another step up. NR all five tracks for Substitute, also. January 21: Dragged out the keyboard to fatten up the tracks.
January 19: Unpacked the files. I'll probably spend a few days getting everything in order and in the right places. I also have to split the two-track guitar and vocals things we recorded so I can work with them. January 15-18, 2004: The gathering. |
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