don't look now...

but i've got the 2 new songs up on myspace. the link's in yesterday's post (i'm terrible with my html knowledge and blogger kinda sucks for the mac).

i'm teribbly terribly nervous about putting these out in a public forum because it's my first foray into engineering and my first attempt to self produce. i also played all the instruments, created all the loops and did all the vocals. needless to say, if you guys think the songs suck, it's on me.

i really, really, really want everyone's honest feedback on the songs - the music, lyrics, style, everything. if you don't critique it, i won't get better.

i appreciate everyone following the process through my blog. hopefully i'll come back from my meeting in l.a. (the whole reason i'm doing these recordings) with good news...

signs you're an addict

i had every intention of NOT recording last nite. until i got within 10 feet of my studio last nite. so from 10-12, i finished up the 2nd song of 2 that i'm doing on my own. all that's left is to check my edits and fades and then bounce the files to disk (the protools term for making them audio files, not data files. kinda.).

set your watches for tomorrow around 9 central; i'll be posting both songs on myspace late tonite for everyone's listening pleasure. one is called rock n roll. the other is called storybook. give 'em a listen and let me know what you think.

did i mention i want to be your myspace friend? and your friend's friend? send me a friend request, by golly.

(ps-i got a new pair of trail running shoes last nite. not only do they make my ankles feel snug as a bug in a rug, they don't have a stitch of leather on 'em. bitchin'!)

huh.why.ee!

this time next week i'll be sucking up fruity alcohol drinks on some beach in tropical maui, hawaii. on the man's nickel. many of you might recall stories of my escapades whilst in bermuda on a similar trip last year. turns out i've still got them thinking i'm pretty good at what i do, or i haven't given them any reasons to keep my ass out. i might not like my job much, but free trips for doing my job sure beats a swift kick to the balls.

anyway, on to this weekend. i pretty much lived in the studio. i was in my hole for 3 hours friday nite. 5 hours on saturday. 8 hours on sunday. 11 hours yesterday. not to mention 3-4 hours every day since february 11 (yes even on my anniversary and valentine's day. i got permission!).

as of today i've got all 3 songs almost completely finished. one of them IS finished since i've hit the limit on maximum audio tracks allowed in my version of protools - 24 - that's a lot! i've got to double check the last song and make sure there's nothing that needs fixing or tweaking or general shining up. probably gonna get into that on wednesday.

tonite? i'm gonna go buy some trail running shoes, reintroduce myself to the bwe, go home and let my brain quit thinking about the same 9 minutes of noise that have been my sole focus since...what day is it again? maybe catch love monkey (if the twits at cbs didn't cancel it). catch up on scrubs and the office. go to bed before 1. who knows? the options are endless...

tagged by muffy

a reprieve for those of you not enjoying my audio geek commentary the past few days. muffy done tagged me...here we go:

remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.
1. Radmilla
2. Riri
3. Huts
4. Karmadgeon
5: (insert name here)

next, select 5 people to tag: fancypants, wooderson, fritz, short & fat, and nik d.

what were you doing 10 years ago?1996?
barely hanging onto life as a college student, dreaming of being a rock star.

what were you doing 1 year ago?
probably the same thing i'm doing now. working for the man, trying to be a rock star

five snacks you enjoy
1. pistachio nuts
2. snack mix (not choosy)
3. Lays(c) Salt & Vinegar potato chips
4. popcorn w/tabasco sauce
5. chips & salsa

five songs to which you know all the lyrics (other than mine, right?)
1. radio, radio - elvis costello
2. straight to hell - the clash
3. i'm in love with a girl - big star
4. suspicious minds - elvis
5. incident on 57th street - the boss (most of his songs, actually)
(i tried to at least pick a couple of songs that i haven't covered. can anyone guess which two?)

five things you would do if you were a millionaire
1. quit my job to go balls out for a music career.
2. debt? what debt? that includes the house payment.
3. buy the wife something neat. a beetle, maybe. convertible.
4. take my dad to a bunch of nascar nextel cup races
5. go to europe. for a month. maybe two.
(we're talking more than one million, right?)

five bad habits
1. smoking
2. not very tidy. not lazy, just don't notice.
3. fidgety. very fidgety.
4. i tend to interrupt. i chalk it up to enthusiasm and being easily excitable.
5. i'm great at washing clothes. i'm not great at putting them up.

five things you like doing
1. anything involving music (could make a list out of the specifics alone)
2. watching hockey
3. travelling
4. hanging out with the b.w.e. (best wife ever for the uninitiated)
5. being nice to people

five things you would never wear again:
1. parachute pants
2. a "striped" shirt (never worn one, but had to make that part of the list.)
3. tighty whiteys
other than that, i'd probably try anything...

five favorite toys:
1. new video ipod
2. protools & reason
3. the ibook
4. my gibson j-45
5. my predator bobbleheads

whew! that's a mouthful. i need a drink. who wants to meet me at slow bar? oh, wait...

iwannacompressyou

for the past couple of nites, i've been taking lessons in compression and eq. i don't understand either well enough to explain them, so you'll just have to take my word on it: they rule.

by adding the right amount and kind of compression and eq, i can make something more audible without making it louder. it's freakin' amazing. however, my ignorance makes the process take much longer than it probably should. it's all part of the learning process, though, so i'm cool with it.

that's all for now. bwe's having dinner with her moms tonite, so i'm gonna be mixing from the word go as soon as i get home. i'm hoping to have one song finished tonite and the other song ready for the bass tracking by saturday.

i'm really nervous saying this but, as soon as i get these 2 songs finished i'm going to put them on myspace for all of you to hear.

a good two hours

(please note: if you haven't read yesterday's post, i'd recommend reading it before reading this. actually, you'd probably do well to read most of the posts from last week and this week in chronilogical order.)

i was planning on taking last nite off, but when b.w.e. announced 34 minutes into coffee & cigarettes that she couldn't hold her eyes open a second longer (and it wasn't quite 10) i told her that i was gonna go work and would come collect her in a couple of hours, since she wouldn't know the difference between me sitting there watching a movie and me sitting in front of a computer. in true b.w.e. fashion, she agreed and sent me with her blessing. so off to work i went.

things went well last nite. with some phone coaching from my friend dawson, who has already taken on a similar project and learned quite a bit about mixing and editing, i was able to get the second song, storybook (not the song from the nite before), in pretty good shape for completion today (minus the bass...a friend's working on mine to make it sound pretty. it's good to have friends!).

tonite's menu will include, but will not be limited to: getting the strings and guitars balanced on storybook, a song that some of you have heard live, but that i've been afraid to record. i might have to drop a part in here or there, but i think i just need to add some compression, reverb and eq.

it's amazing what reverb, compression and eq will do for a song. one day when i'm famous i'll have all of you over to my mansion of a studio to let you hear the difference. you'd be astounded. speaking of mansion, the man's gonna shun me if i don't get crackin'.

no rest for the weary...

chasing the mix

last nite i mixed. and i tracked. then i listened. and i mixed. and i tracked. and i listened. and i tracked. and i cursed. i don't know what real producers and engineers call it, but i call it chasing the mix (race car drivers "chase the track" or "chase a setup" when they get behind the changes that a track goes through in a race. that's where i got it.). i couldn't get happy with what i had, so i added more to it.

more reverb.

more compression.

more delay.

more more.

that didn't work, so i started getting weird. i recorded a phone ringing. best wife ever's voicemail. my dog's barking (no, not my sore feet). nothin'. it didn't matter what i threw at the mix, it didn't work. this happens from time to time, so i did what you're supposed to do when you find yourself chasing it.

i shut it down. after 4 hours of head banging frustration, i realized (about 2 hours after i should've) that it wasn't gonna happen last nite. if i'd caught myself earlier, i could've moved to a new song and seen what was working. instead, i walked out of my studio at midnight last nite with probably less than i went in with (it's funny how adding more often gives you less). i was so busy trying to figure out what was missing, that i didn't hear what was missing:

it.

every good song has it. it's not something specific, it's just it. maybe it's the lift that a guitar lick creates in a chorus. maybe it's the spooky keyboard part that announces the bridge. athletes have an "it", books have an "it". songs do, too. i spent 4 hours trying to create mine, instead of backing off and coming back with fresh ears tomorrow (taking valentine's day off, thank you very much) and letting it happen. it always just happens. kinda like love i guess. you dont force it. you can work on recognizing it and taking advantage of it (in a good way), but you can't just make it (note: like love, you can't buy it and you can't hurry it.).

tomorrow's a new day. i'll find it. i know it's out there. i just have to listen.

the art of the comp

some of you will know this and some of you won't: most of the singing you hear on your ipod and your radio is not "live". what i mean is, most of what you hear is a collection of the best parts of a handful of takes that have been pieced together for one solid "best of" vocal track. it's called "comping". some people, famously, do stuff live (ryan adams does it quite a bit from what i understand), but most people have their vocals comped and "pro-tooled", meaning they're dissected, pitch corrected and shined up for final presentation. trust me, it's a good thing.

it can be a fairly arduous process, the comp. i had a vocal track comped almost syllable by syllable a few years ago (before singing lessons and before hours & hours & hours of practice & rehearsal...). it took hours, approximately one hour per minute of singing. i wasn't allowed to be in the studio for fear that i'd never ever want to sing again. the last time i was in the studio we did comps phrase by phrase or line by line, i was allowed to help, and it took about an hour per song, a sure sign that things are improving.

last nite i attempted to comp a vocal track, mine, for the first time on my own. the nite before i had recorded vocals for two songs, approximately 7 takes per song to make sure i had plenty of material to work with (good engineers/producers only keep 3-4 "best" takes...more on that later).

here's how the process works and why it left my brain in a big mushy pile inside my head: you take a phrase you've sung, "it's a girl, my Lord in a flatbed ford" for instance (from a shit song, but it's what i've got in my ears while i'm on hold). you listen to the various takes for the best one. it's really pretty simple, you'd think.

sometimes it's obvious which one's best. most of the time it's not. maybe the "or" in "Lord" is a little longer than you'd like. maybe the pitch on take 3 isn't as good as take 2, but the sprit's a little better. it's not just editing, it's critical listening to the nth degree. do you remember the multiple choice tests in high school and college that made you pick the "best" answer and not the "right" answer? well, i had 7 good answers. i had to find the best answer for every phrase in 2 songs. by now, it's probably clear why most sensible producers only keep a few takes, not a half dozen or more. let's say one song has 8 phrases per verse, 4 phrases per prechorus, and 4 for a chorus. it's got 2 verses and the chorus doubles at the end. (i'll wake you up in a second). 7 takes. that's 252 choices. in three and a half minutes. twice.

i'm not complaining, it's fun and it's a challenge. i learned a lot about how i sing and lots about consistency and what makes a good take last nite. hopefully i'll remember that later this week when i do it again.

one thing, though...next time you see a musician, producer or engineer and he (or she) exhaustedly says to you, "man, i just got out of a 8 hour session and i'm worn the crap out," don't think of them as a lazy musician. they've been working hard, just from the neck up...

more updates later if you guys want 'em. is this stuff interesting at all to anyone but me?

progress report

i'm starting to get nervous about getting these songs done by the 23rd. i'm so nervous that i can hardly enjoy watching shaun white tear the halfpipe up at the winter olympics.

i better get my shit together and have the vocal tracks done before the olympic hockey starts or i'm mega-screwed.

okay, shaun white's done. bode miller can wait...time to go mix.

wish me luck!

a quick note to all the normally semi-intelligent nashvillians who go absolutely nucking futs when they see snow start to fall:

IT'S SNOW!!!! YOU SEE IT EVERY DAMN WINTER!!!! YOU WILL BE ABLE TO GET OUT OF YOUR DRIVEWAY TOMORROW!!!! SHIT, YOU MIGHT EVEN BE ABLE TO WEAR SHORTS!!!! THERE'S NO FUCKING NEED TO DRIVE 20MPH UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT AND THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO BUMRUSH THE GROCERY STORE!!!! ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S 38 BLESSED DEGREES OUTSIDE!!!! THIRTY-EIGHT!!!!!!!!




"tell ya the truth, i don't think this is a brains kind of operation..."
-the way of the gun



ps-it's raining now. nice job, snowbird. you asshat.

rapid fire

gonna be a busy little beaver today. so here's what's on my mind and what's going on today, all quick like:

-i'm attempting something i've never attempted before: recording songs "for real" at my home studio. not demos to take to a producer or to musicians to learn. i'm recording the real deal at my house. all the loops and sounds i've been working on have given me the confidence to try a few on my own as producer, engineer, band and...actually i think that's it. so far things are going really well. i'm getting good sounds, finding good parts and moving pretty quickly (2 songs halfway done recording). i've got until the 23rd to get 3-4 songs done, so keep your fingers crossed that i can keep with the pace.

-my new ipod arrived yesterday. holy marty mcfly is this thing badass!!!! i'd forgotten how much i missed my old one, but this is like having a pet hamster that "disappeared" when you were a kid only to find it replaced by a brand new puppy. wow wow wow.

-speaking of ipods, the guy that's suing apple for hearing loss due to the ipod's loud volume is a fucking idiot. i guess he got the special ipod without a volume control. and, (AND!) he isn't even claiming to have hearing loss. i guess all those former break dancers that used to rock the block with the box on their shoulder should sue sony. or maybe run dmc for making block rockin' jams. someone should drop a 60 gig ipod into a sweatsock and beat this guy with it.

-the nashville predators will make me stroke out by season's end. win 5 straight, lose 3. beat detroit twice in a row in two nites in their barn, lose to minnesota and columbus. play like worldbeaters last nite for half a period in dallas, play like dogshit the rest of the game.

-having just raved about my ipod, i must admit that i'm buying records lately. not cd's. not downloads. vinyl records. 12 inch discs (careful how you read that aloud). i'm loving it. i'd forgotten how thrilling it is to open a big cardboard sleeve, slip the record out of the jacket and see my favorite songs in grooves on shiny black platters. it's all quite sexy really. so far my new collection consists of: born to run, the wild the innocent and the e-street shuffle, the river, greetings from asbury park (all bruce springsteen) and sergeant pepper's. in the next few days i'll be the proud owner of 3 costello records and hopefully a big star record or something. long live vinyl! thanks to the best mother in law ever for letting me "borrow" her old record player.

that's all. the man's on my ass this month, so i better get back to work.

more answers to questions no one asked

i must be the slow kid in class, because i've been tagged once again - this time by my bostonian buddy chad. i highly recommend his blog, by the way. it's much deeper than most of what i write, but is very well written and, in my eyes, usually write on point.

i think these are the same questions that bad bad ivy challenged me with, but i don't exactly recall. forgive me if i'm repeating myself, but here goes:


Four Jobs I’ve Had:
-applebees, nashville, tn (in 100 oaks) - server. i tried waiting tables for approximately 2 months. here's where i realized i was destined to a life of good tipping. there are many things i can do. wait on tables is NOT one of them.
-nipper's corner theatre, nashville, tn - ticket taker and concession guy. you'd think this job would suck. not really. free movies, free drinks, free movie posters and stand ups. not bad.
-homeplace, franklin, tn - stocker guy. best job ever. why? here is where i met best wife ever.
-

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:
(by no means an exhaustive list, and i couldn't stop at four)
-that thing you do!. tom hanks' directorial debut and one of my favorite films ever.
-multiplicity. the best bad film i've ever seen.
-high fidelity. i am rob in so many ways that it's silly.
-willie wonka and the chocolate factory. the first is the best.
-slapshot. if you don't know what "putting on the foil" means, you need to watch this movie. top 5 sports movie of all time.
-groundhog day. if i'm gonna list movies i can watch over and over, shouldn't it include a movie about a day that won't stop happening?

Four Books I Could Read Over and Over:
(ditto)
-zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, robert pirsig. this book quite honestly changed the way i view reality and the way i view the world in general.
-high fidelity, nick hornby. the movie's great. the book is better.
-east of eden, john steinbeck. it took a while, but this book drew me in to the point where i felt like i was letting the characters down if i didn't read it everyday.
-sex, drugs and cocoa puffs, chuck klosterman. it's funny. it's irreverent. it's right (and wrong, but only in the right ways).

Four Places I've Lived:
-with my parents
-with brian
-with my little brother
-in my head.

Four TV Shows I Watch:
-hockey.
-my name is earl.
-the office.
-scrubs
-house. just in case you won't accept "hockey" as a show.

Four Places I've Been On Vacation:
-bermuda
-destin, fl
-negril, jamaica
-san francisco, ca

Four Websites I Visit Daily:
-nashvillepredators.com (message board)
-myspace
-this stupid blog
-ebay

Four of My Favorite Foods:
-barbecued tempeh. it's the newest fave, so it goes to the top. deeeeelish.
-pizza, really not picky, but uncle gio's sicilian (in nashville) is pretty damn good.
-anything at chicago diner.
-anything at millenium.

Four Places I'd Like to Be Right Now:
-in the studio
-in bed
-at a hockey game
-with best wife ever (preferably in combination with answers 2 & 3 to this question)

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging:
i've tagged everyone i know, and it seems kinda silly to tag someone that i don't know, so i'm gonna pass on this one.

of dads and sons and bands

i think i'm about to make an ass of myself. i really don't care. i'm not pissed off or anything, just put out with this post today thanks to nashvilleistalking.

it seems that this guy ryan was very recently divorced from his wife and is moving across the country. now, i don't know ryan, nor do i regularly read his blog. i know nothing about him other than what i read today. knowing nothing of his circumstance, i won't make judgements about him. but i will take issue with something he said. here's what set me off :

I embrace the mere thought of reconnection, independence, and responsibility...I look forward to introspection and nothingness. To crassness and conviction. To experience. Fucking Christ, how I have missed experience.

ryan has a son named emerson that he loves dearly. i don't know how old emerson is, but i'd guess he's about the same age as i was when my parents split up. my dad wanted to experience things too, i'm sure. to be out from underneath the burden of a wife and kids.

you know what i wanted? i wanted my dad. i wanted to play catch. i wanted to be like the other kids. i wanted experience, too. with him.

you know what he wants now? experience. to see me play a show. to have experienced my growing up - to teach me to drive, to shave, to see my first date. he wishes he'd been there for those experiences. he'd trade in all the ones that he had for all the ones he missed. too bad, so sad. we both lose.

i hope when ryan's older that he can fix his relationship with his son like my dad did with me. actually, i hope it doesn't get messed up in the first place. but i have a hard time believing that he has to go across the country for experiences. my guess is there are plenty to go around right there in his old house.

so there. i think divorce is stupid and that dads & moms are supposed to work things out and that kids are forever the ones getting fucked over in this deal. does that make me an ass?

the comman's rival

it's well known that last week i sang the praises of the comma all about town. oh sure, it was on my myspace blog, this blog, hell, it even made it into wooderson's post comments. yup, i was whorin' around with the comma, thinking it was the bpmoc (big punctuation mark on campus). turns out i may have spoken to soon.

you see, a friend of mine said she thought that, while the comma was pretty powerful, that the most powerful punctuation mark is actually:

;-) or it's cousin :-) or uncle :-[)

now, leaving arguments about whether this is actually a punctuation mark or not aside, she has a point. here are a few examples of the emoticon's power. imagine i sent best wife ever the following:

you're a vegan asshole!!!
you're a vegan asshole!!! ;-)

she'd have the locks changed before i could correctly pronounce seitan if i sent the first one. the second? well, it'd be something we'd laugh about as we mocked other people who "just don't get us."

the emoticon changes everything!!! here's another example. imagine that your coworker received the following from your regional vice president:

great job covering for me on the reports, dwight. you really made me look like a genius!
great job covering for me on the reports, dwight. you really made me look like a genius! ;-) LOL!! (not technically an emoticon, but we'll cover abbreviation thingys next week, so it's okay)

he'd get the first one and think, "woohoo! they finally noticed that i ALWAYS sort my sales by descending revenue, then by alphabet and THEN by application. it's about time!!" and then start singing the jeffersons' theme song. if he got the second, he'd probably start thinking about which office supplies he can sneak out with before getting shit-canned.

so, mr. comma, we had a good run, but i'm thinking that maybe the emoticon is my guy. i know, i know. but look at that smile! and the wink? it makes me giddy just thinking about it. oh, don't worry, you'll be fine. i'm sure there's lots of writers who would absolutely love a punctuation mark like you. ;-)