Me & The Fly/This Is Going To Take, Like, Forever - 050615

Sponsored by  "Music (random)".

...FLY

Finished the first half of my Twitter promo campaign. Second half starts tomorrow

...FOREVER

Another "window" opened for me this afternoon, so I managed to mix/master the track in CE5/AA3.

The track truly lived up to its name as it was way more difficult to mix than I'd thought. The main difficulty was trying to get the bass to sit nicely in the mix. Took me a few hours but I finally cracked it. A certain amount of judicious editing of the Ric bass parts was required.

The mix is fine. I thought I'd missed an aspect of the track in the mix that I thought was present in the rough demo I'd made a few months back, but when I reviewed the demo, that aspect wasn't there as I'd imagined it. Starting to come a little unglued here...;-).

Only one more mix to go. I won't be able to manage it this weekend and I'm on a road trip pretty much all next week, so it will the week after that again before I'll be able tackle that track, In the meantime, I'll continue with my promo efforts.

Regards,


djp

Me & The Fly/My Troubles Are As Nothing Compared To Yours/Stiltwalker In The Wind - 040615

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

...FLY

I was starting to do some more promo work on Twitter, when a whopping great big "window" opened up for me, so I dropped the promo for the present. I'll get on to it over the next few days.

On top of that I got contacted with an offer to do a drum & bass remix of ...FLY. Will have to think about that - correspondence has been exchanged and responses are awaited...

In view of the whopping great big "window":-

...TROUBLES

Mixed/mastered in CE5/AA3. Three mixes in all - third is the best. Had to do a lot of emergency surgery on the Ric bass parts, but everything sounds hella tight now.

STILTWALKER...

Mixed/mastered in CE5/AA3. Two mixes  - second is best. Had to tweak the vocal parts a bit. Pretty easy mix to do, as it happens.

I have to rejoin the "real world" briefly tomorrow, so I don't know exactly what I'll be doing on the project. Promo most likely.

Only two tracks left to mix/master now. Yowza!

Regards,


djp

FCA Boots/Gomorrah/Is Everybody Happy Yet? - 220515

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

FCA BOOTS

Sorted the glitch. Remixed/remastered in CE5/AA3. Sorted.

GOMORRAH

Had to do an emergency edit on the Ric bass/Squier Strat parts. Mixed/mastered in CE5/AA3. Three mixes. Taking the second.

IS EVERYBODY HAPPY YET?

What a nightmare of a track to mix. Had to edit the Squier Strat parts and do a huge amount of tweaking of the VST soft synth parts. Mixed/mastered in CE5/AA3/AA1.5. Not sure if I'm 100% happy with it. Made multiple mixes, too many to count. I picked the least worst one, if you follow me. I spent an awful lot of time on a track that won't actually feature on the finished album. Who'd be me, eh...?

In other news, my broadband was down all day. I was too busy to check it out during the day, but this evening I got on to my ISP. During the week, I'd ordered fibre broadband and was told that an engineer would be out in a few weeks to sort things out. However, it seems that they actually turned on my fiber broadband today and my router couldn't handle it, Luckily, I had a second router which could take fibre broadband, so I got on to the support guy and found that if I connected it to the test phone socket inside the master phone socket, everything worked fine. However, the support guy told me that this would disable my landline, so I had to disconnect my alarm, because it was beeping like mad.

Subsequently, I discovered that the landline could work if I connected it to the test socket through the filter. So it seems there may have been no need to disconnect the alarm at all. Tcheh! So now you know what I'll be up to for the rest of the evening.

Shtuff...

Regards,


djp

FCA Boots/Tropes and Memes - 200515

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

FCA BOOTS

Did 4 different mixes in CE5 and mastered in AA3. I think I'll go with the fourth mix, but I have an idea for an edit which might be interesting - we'll see. It'll be based on the fourth mix anyway, so it'll only take a few minutes to try it out.

Had to do an emergency edit of the Ric bass parts and programme a new synth part - the latter may not be necessary.

TROPES AND MEMES

Did one mix in CE5 and mastered in AA3. A simpler task, even though that track is more complex than FCA. Such is life.

I'm starting to run out of time here, so I'm going to do a blitz of mixing/mastering over the next few weeks. Some distractions along the way of course - a.k.a. shtuff.

More tomorrow.

Regards,


djp

Choking On Dry Bread/Me & The Fly - 060515

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Thought I might have a window to do some mixing/mastering this week, but I have a house full of students studying for exams, so that put the kibosh on that...

Instead, I started work editing CHOKING..., which essentially is a radical dub of ...FLY. The track is being extensively re-worked and will pretty much start at the middle section of ...FLY and everything will radiate from there, if you know what I mean,

The Ric bass and Squier Strat parts are pretty much sorted and MIDI soft synth parts are pretty OK too, but I might look at that aspect of the track again. Since the student "situation" is continuing for the rest of the week, I'll do some work on this tomorrow and possibly Friday. I'll look to see what use I can make of the existing vocal parts. With a bit of luck, I'll be able to start dubbing-up tomorrow.

As CHOKING... is working off the ...FLY CE5 project file, and as all the levels have been set for the ...FLY mix, I should, in theory, be able to mix/master CHOKING... using the ...FLY levels without having to use monitors for mixing. I'll give that a go. If it works, it'll save me a good bit of time.

CHOKING...will feature on the album, while ...FLY will not. Just want to clarify that.

Regards,


djp

FCA Boots - 250415

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

In the spirit of yesterday's posting, I did a blitz on FCA BOOTS, editing and dubbing-up in CE5.

There isn't a huge amount of space in the track, so there wasn't a huge amount of dubbing-up I could do (some of it will be lost in the mix, which rather defeats the purpose of dubbing-up, I suppose) but it's done and I'm happy with it. Had to tweak some of the Ric bass/Squier Strat parts, but it's sounding great now and ready to mix/master.

More work (possibly) tomorrow...

Regards,


djp

You'll Never Miss Your Mother Till The Well Runs Dry - 140415

Sponsored by "Deezer".

Edited/dubbed-up the Squier Strat parts in CE5. Also did some editing of the Ric bass parts. Things sound pretty tight now.

According to previous blog posts, I had planned to track some choral-type vocal parts and according to my progress spreadsheet, I actually had tracked them. But I can't find the wavs anywhere, so I suspect that I didn't track them, but mistakenly noted that I had. D'ye follow me?

At this stage, I can't really see how adding vocals will do anything other than muck up the arrangement, so I'll forget about the vocals. And on the basis of such accidents, artistic choices are made...;-).

That being the case, the track is ready to mix/master. Time to move on...

Regards,


djp

This Is Going To Take, Like, Forever - 110415

Sponsored by "djp".

Spent the morning in my PJs (you probably didn't really need to know that...), radically re-editing the Ric bass parts in CE5.  I got them as tight as I could, but certain issues have had to be covered-up in a dub stylee...

One of the big problems I've had to deal with on this track has been trying to sync a MIDI kick drum with a reverse kick drum. This may have lead to some of the concerns I had with the bass part timing. But I finally sorted that out, so the track sounds really well.

For a while there, I thought it was going to live up to its title...;-).

Time to move on. More work tomorrow, most probably.

Regards,


djp

This Is Going To Take, Like, Forever - 100415

Sponsored by "Disco".

Edited/dubbed-up the vocal parts in CE5. Came together rather easily. I used some "wild" vocal parts to form an outro. Sounds intriguing.

Also discovered some Squier Strat parts which I'd tracked but hadn't edited. Had a poke around to see what was useful, but only kept a few little snippets.

I think I'm going to have to do an emergency edit on the Ric bass parts. They're not quite as tight as I'd like 'em. I'll have a go at that over the weekend.

Regards,


djp

Never Had It To Lose It - 290115

Sponsored by "Neil Young etc."

Mixed/mastered the track in CE5/AA3.

Had a lot of "fun" trying to get the Ric bass parts and the drum parts to sit well together. Much faffing about with EQs and the like, but got there eventually. One or two little edits required for the Squier Strat parts also.

The track sounds fine, but I'm still not sure about its place on the album - it feels more like an EP track at this stage, but we'll see when all the other tracks are done.

More work tomorrow.

Regards,


djp

FCA Boots - 020115

Sponsored by "Last Played 2012" and "Last Played 2013".

Programmed/edited a number of MIDI VST plugin parts in CE5 using the Roland Juno-D/Phonic Firefly/HALion One/ JP Analogue Stringpad. Not sure if I'm going to use all the parts, but I'll certainly use most of them.

I also took the opportunity to tweak some of the Ric bass parts and the MIDI drum parts. All is well now.

The track is bloody awesome as it is, but there's more to do on it at a later stage.

Check in later on when I will give an overview of the project status. Could be mildly interesting...;-).

Regards,


djp

Never Had It To Lose It - 141214

Sponsored by "Iggy Pop etc.".

Managed to sneak in a quick session, editing the Ric bass parts in CE5. Coming together quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

Not sure if I'll be managing any further sessions this week. The end of the week is going to be disrupted, in a nice way of course, by the return of Younger Daughter from her five-month study session in Sweden. I'm sure the place will be in a state of chassis in the meantime and thereafter...;-).

Regards,


djp

My Troubles Are As Nothing Compared To Yours - 121214

Sponsored by "Ian Dury".

Edited the Ric and Godman 12-string parts in CE5. That came together rather easily, with the bare minimum (comparatively speaking) of tweaking.

Having much time to spare, I programmed  and edited a variety of MIDI VST plugins via the Roland Juno-D/Phonic Firefly/HALion One/Brass Fanfare/Mixed Percussion/Nanotron/Kore Player Sky Kit. Not too sure about the brass parts - they're a bit tricky to blend in easily with the...er...analogue timing of the 12-string and bass parts. Let's see...

Must do some more working on editing the drum parts. A job for next week, methinks...

Regards,


djp

I Choose Indecision - 051214

Sponsored by "Futureheads".

Finished off editing the Ric bass parts in CE5. Took a bit more time than I thought, and, in keeping with the track's title, there were a few moments where I got completely lost in cut'n'pasting and I didn't really know what to do. But I got it sorted eventually. Go Me!

I also edited the MIDI drum parts to sort out some stray kicks.

The track is in pretty good shape, but more editing is required next week.

Regards,


djp

I Choose Indecision - 301114

Sponsored by "Field Music".

After a hiatus, I decided to crack on with the project, so I started editing the Ric bass parts in CE5. Not complete, but another day should do it. Coming along nicely.

Regards,


djp

I Can Explain...Everything - 201114

Sponsored by "Dub etc.".

Finished off editing the Squier Strat parts in CE5, Also edited the Stylophone parts and had another cut at the Ric bass parts. In pretty good nick now, but I'm sure there will be more edits when it comes time to dub it up.

Sounding like potential EP material. Something has to be EP material.

Off on a road-trip for the next few days, so I won't be working on the album for a while. Such is life...

Regards,


djp

I Can Explain...Everything- 111114

Sponsored by "Daniel Prendiville". Self-praise is no praise, so they say...;-)

Edited the Ric bass part and most of the Squier Strat parts in CE5. Less about cutting and pasting and more about muting the parts inna dub stylee.

More work to do,but I won't be doing it tomorrow, because I'm on a road trip...

Regards,


djp

FCA Boots - 101114

Sponsored by "Daniel Land".

Productive day. I had only planned to edit the Ric bass parts, but I also managed to edit the Squier Strat parts too. All this while waiting for a phone call. Still waiting at time of writing.

Some small tweaks remain, which I will address tomorrow.

Track sounds great, BTW - thanks for askin'...

Regards,


djp

Me & The Fly - 291014

Sponsored by "Brian Eno".

Edited the Ric bass parts in CE5. Sound pretty good now.

Back to the real world tomorrow. I might be able to spots of editing over the next few evenings. Or not...

Regards,


djp

FCA Boots - 231014

Sponsored by "Bleep Podcast".

New track today.

Tracked 10 Ric bass parts on the Tascam 2488, using the Line 6 Bass Pod XT. Audio cleanup in AA3 and inserted into the relevant project file in CE5.

This is going to be another one of the those mad tracks I've done in the past with multiple time signatures. Not unlike this, in many ways...:-

And, as it turns out that I've now actually addressed all the potential track titles for the new album, this will probably turn out to have been the last bass tracking session for the album. How fitting, therefore, that I should mark the occasion by tracking while wearing my dressing gown. Again...

I'm hitting a pivotal point in the project about 9 weeks early. Which can't be a bad thing, yes...?

More work tomorrow.

Regards,

djp