Uploaded some MP3s to my website

Go to the "Listen Up" section to listen to them. I haven't had time to set up a streaming service yet, so you'll have to download them for now. "Perfect Day" is my favorite, but probably the least "radio-friendly". However, the other two are good, too, and Daydreams is the one I'm flogging to radio stations (unlikely, but we'll see).

BTW, the main guy at the studio forgot to tell his assistant that I was going to be there today, so the MP3s I've put out there I've made myself. I guess I'll go in tomorrow and get my files. But I'll be happy to have it all done.

Although when you get right down to it, when is it ever all done, this side of the grave? Hell, now that I have the CD, I still need to flog the CD to NW radio stations and indie record stores, set up e-distro and audio streaming via CD Baby, and the biggest part of all, getting a band together and booking dates.

The good news is that I'm getting really good at making lists. I have the names and contacts of all college and alt radio station in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington where there is a chance in hell of getting the CD played, as well as all venues that book acts in Portland. If I can do this for me, I might be able to do this for others, as well. And to think, at one time, I was looking forward to a quiet retirement (not that I'm anywhere near that, anyhow).

Anyway, the funny thing is that I usually get melancholic and depressed in Autumn. This year, with everything that's going on, I really haven't noticed it at all. I'm actually happy in Autumn. Of course, some of my best songs come when I'm melancholic and depressed, so that's a trade-off. Maybe one day I'll be able to tell which was more useful.

CDs to be delivered next week!

I got the duplication order put in today. The CDs should be back next week in time for me to cart a dozen or so back to Illinois for the various folks there. I should be relieved. However, I'll actually be worried until I get them all back. Anyhow, it was good getting all that taken care of.

Tomorrow I pick up MP3 and project files from the studio and my dealings with them are finished.

I'll spend a couple of days cleaning up the hard drive and backing up all of the data, getting ready for the next magnum opus and updating the website with the graphics and downloads.

So, I can now start to feel a bit of post partum depression...

Little things matter

I got the masters last week. I was somewhat startled that, when I listened through my headphones at home, in one of the tracks the guitars seemed to be gone, and most of the tracks sounded a bit "one-dimensional". Of course, when I listened through the speakers, everything was OK. Which was weird, because usually headphones don't change the sound that much. After much swearing and even calling the guys at the studio to try to figure out what had happened to the master, I finally figured it out. A couple of weeks ago, I had put a Y-splitter into the headphone jack of the I/O box to hook up a pair of earbuds, so I could choose to hear the mixes in that kind of headphone, as well. Unfortunately, in my haste to do this, I grabbed a stereo->stereo+mono splitter rather than a stereo->stereo+stereo splitter. As such, my main phones had been fed by the right channel in both ears, leading to several "gremlins" while listening in the phones that were not evident while I listened on the speakers or earbuds. It goes to show that making sure that things are hooked up right are important.

So, we're back on track with the masters. Everything sounds fine. Are there things I would go back and change? Sure. But that's the way things go. You take your best shot and you put it out there. I also got the initial artwork from Maren over the weekend. It looks great! I had a couple of minor changes, and I had trimmed a couple of the song's lead-ins so I needed to change the timing, but I should be gone to duplication by Tuesday. Almost done...

The band played Friday night at a little wine bar in Sellwood. Burdigala is a great little place that usually has acoustic acts. I was initially concerned about fitting in the space provided. The performance area (I won't call it a stage, as there was no separation from the audience) was small and half the space was taken up by a baby grand that the piano player who usually plays on Friday and Saturday uses. The good news is that the grand was in tune, so we had our keyboard player use it rather than her electric piano (and the grand did sound great). The space was small enough and the volumes were low enough that we didn't need to amp it. Our drummer brough his electric kit and I brought a 1x12 amp to play bass through. It didn't have a great bottom, but I was able to get a great disto tone through it. We actually got a larger crowd than we normally get at Sellwood, the band played well, and (I must ultimately admit) I had a really good time - much better than how I thought it would turn out when I first saw the place (of course, my delight was put to a strenuous test Saturday morning when I had to get up in time to get the dog to the vet by 8:20).

AMA is coming together. I am cautiously optimistic for the future. Dave (our drummer) sent me a song yesterday that blew me away. I love the melody and the words are great. It sounds modern, it's upbeat, and I can't say enough good about it. Of course, this reminds me I need to get back to writing. I have about four partial songs that I've gotten to various stages of mis-repair, but none finished. I have one other one complete that I need to record.

Also on Saturday I got a new LCD monitor for the DAW computer. It replaces an old 17" CRT monitor, so I now have a 22" 16:9 monitor and a 17" 4:3 monitor on the system. I played about with Sonar in the new setup and the track view is so much bigger with the new monitor, it's not even funny. It's really nice. Plus, it was only $170 - to me that's amazing.

I'm also playing about with Renoise again. It seems to be really good for doing drum and bass/electronica sorts of things. However, that sort of thing isn't quite right for the band (either of them). So I'm going to try seeing how well it does with standard drum samples to build a straightforward rock sort of track. The editing interface is much better than trying to use my MIDI keyboard or manually editing piano roll views. Anyhow, I'm having a ball with the program. And maybe I will come up with some electronica stuff.

I need to start looking for the members of Adrian. Of course, it would be easier if I understood what my roll would be - singer, singer/guitarist, or singer/bass. Oddly enough, I'm becoming quite enamored with playing bass. However, what I'd really like to do is to sing some songs while not doing anything else and switch off between guitar and bass for other songs. So maybe I need to find a guitarist and guitarist/bassist (or two of the latter). Plus a drummer and keyboard player. Anyhow, I'd like to get Adrian together by EOY and start performing in 1Q10.

So, yet again, I'm busy. The good news is that I have nothing I have to do other than getting my guitar equipment shipped to Illinois this week.

No CD Yet

As of Thursday AM, the CD mastering isn't finished yet. Again, I hesitate to ask the guys at the studio to rush, but I'm anxious to get things finished so I can send the CD for duplication. I'd really like to have completed disks by the time I get back to Illinois during Halloween weekend and we're coming close to where that will no longer be possible. And so... we wait.

I purchased a copy of Renoise and I'm learning how to use it. I will soon be the master of the techno beats (which I'm sure scares the hell out of everyone out there reading this). Perhaps the next album will be electronica! OK, just kidding. However, the program does seem to be easier to use to trigger drum samples than with Sonar. As for the UI, well... it sucks.

But now - a rant. To be honest, I haven't seen a single DAW/music editing program that didn't have a UI that sucked rocks. This is problem with most niche markets - the geeks that initially build the stuff organically grow a UI that makes sense to them and ultimately the usability converges to a sub-optimal point that everyone gets used to. Since there is not enough money to fund real usability research, the UI just accretes over time around this low point. Throw in the fact that most of the companies producing this software want to lock in their users with proprietary data formats (and better yet, knowledge about the key strokes and commands that drive the software) and it's no wonder that things don't get better. I've seen this in electronic design systems, in medical record systems, and now in music software. In short, software sucks and it's not going to get much better anytime soon.

Ending the rant and getting back to the main topic again, yes, Renoise's UI sucks, but it sucks less than doing the same thing in Sonar. I like the vertical tracks and the simplicity of adding samples. If you're slicing beats and samples, it's really good. Of course working with the final tracks in the context of a completed song means exporting the rhythm tracks from Renoise and importing them as audio tracks into one's DAW, making the process of modifying them after the fact somewhat clumsy. Oh well, it's fun learning something new and playing with a new system.

I didn't re-catch my cold. That's a plus. However, stress at my day job has my neck acting up a bit. I called the doctor and got a few Vicodin tabs, but by the time I went in to see him (actually, the gal who was subbing for him while he was out) my neck was feeling better after a day or two of rest. So if it doesn't get better over the next few days with Aleve as an anti-inflamatory, we'll get a prescription for Feldene or Voltarin, and if that doesn't help, on to physical therapy. I'm hoping that it doesn't go that far though, since when I get to that point, PT doesn't work and so it's on to surgery for another ruptured disk. So I'm taking it easy this week, watching my ergonomics, and not pushing around heavy weights. I need to be in good shape by the end of next week when AMA practices on Thursday and plays on Friday. Two weeks after that, I'm back in Illinois, with another three-day marathon practice with Shiver (our last before our performances in April and June of next year).

In the meantime, I'm trying to rustle up a band locally to play the songs on my CD (and some that are too new to be on the CD). SO, yet again, I find myself busy, busy, busy...

Almost Done

I've got some of the artwork back for the CD and it looks great (Thanks Maren!). On the other hand, Lee from the studio wrote and let me know that the mastering is still being worked on and probably won't be finished until next week. Oh well, I know how projects can drag on. And I'd rather that they spend the time getting the stuff to sound right than they rush it. Of course, this means that I can't post the couple tracks I plan to until next week...

Plus, I feel like I'm coming down with the cold again (at least my sinuses do).

Almost Over the Cold

This is the first day I've felt human since last Sunday. The cold is almost over - I still have a bit of a runny nose and chest congestion, but at least my head doesn't feel like it's wrapped in cotton and I don't have to take decongestants to be able to breathe.

Work this week has been dreadful, not because of the work part, but because of having to work through a cold. Other than that, things are going well. We have started working on iteration 3 of MNAC 3.5 and all seems well with the world. Actually, since it's the end of the quarter, everyone's working on getting their MBOs done (myself included). I have one more thing to finish by next Wednesday (preferably, by 2:30pm Monday, when my weekly one-on-one with my manager happens) and I'll have completed everything. This will be the first MBO I have gotten 100% on in the past three quarters. Amazing...

Thursday evening, we made tweaks to six songs. This is the end. The changes are now so minor that even those changes didn't take more than an hour and a half (most of which was listening to songs before and after the change to make sure that I wanted to make the change and that the change was OK). Of course, we spent another hour after that trying to figure out why the final song kept trying to be output in PCM, rather than in straight bits, but we finally got that sorted out, I got my CD and got out of there.

After listening at home, one song needed two more tweaks (which I told the engineer about via email, trusting him to make those changes). As far as I'm concerned, the tracks are ready for mastering. The last session should be next week, where I'll hear the final mastered versions and get the tracks. I'm working with the graphic artist now, giving her the go ahead to do everything on the insert, tray card, and CD except for track sequence and final liner notes. She's going to clean up the ADRIAN logo, too, and give it to me in final layout. So, with any luck, by the end of this coming week, I should be ready for duplication.

That's about it for this week. Just waiting for folks to get back to me. I'll restart my jazz guitar lessons this week. I have a couple songs in my head that need to get into the box. I want to beta test the latest version of Melodyne. Other than that, I'm still looking for a good five-string. While I was looking for one on Craigslist, I saw an ad for a house for sale in SW that has a recording studio on the property that I'll probably go look at.

I have never...

… had a cold come on so fast. Saturday before the AMA gig, I was feeling fine. During the job up until towards the end of the second set, I was feeling fine. During the end of the second set and while we were loading out, I noticed my throat was sore – I chalked it up to the singing. Sunday morning, my throat was really sore and I was starting to feel congested. By Sunday afternoon, I was out of it with a full-on cold. I’ve gotten to the point where my throat (mostly) isn’t hurting anymore and I’m barely functional, but my sinuses are running like Niagra Falls.

And now the politicians in my state have decided decided to put pseudoephedrine behind the pharmacist’s barrier (Why don’t they just do something that doesn’t inconvenience me, like making cooking meth a capital offense, huh?), leaving only phenylephrine or diphenhydramine as a replacement, but the first not only costs more, it also isn’t as effective and the second puts me to sleep (which is why I take it around bedtime).

Bitching about this shows I’m obviously in the cranky portion of my cold. Hopefully that will pass soon. As long as I keep myself medicated (I still have a few old pseudoephedrine tablets lying around), I'm doing OK enough. I hope that I can get past this by Thursday, when I'll probably have the last mixing session for the CD.

A Very Busy Week...

I didn't make it into the studio on Sunday evening, but I'll be there making tweaks to the final five tracks Thursday evening. If that goes well, we can also do the final tweaks to five of the six we've we got to the pseudo-final state last time. The sixth song we tweaked last time (Perfect Day) seemed to have had the drum track omitted on my take-home mix and, as such, I won't be able to finalize that until next time. So the goals for the next few days are to do the final mix on the last five songs and get take-home copies of Perfect Day and these songs. I'll listen to them over the weekend and then one more set of tweaks and on to mastering. With any luck, we'll have this thing in the can and ready for dupe by the end of next week. I've narrowed down the duplicators to two choices. One is local, but the other one costs less. I'll need to pick by the middle of the next week because I need to get the design templates to...

... the graphic artist who is going to help me with the artwork for the CD. I worked with Maren from Linea Forma Design while I was at UxComm. There's not a lot left to do - mainly clean-up/formatting work based on concept art/liner notes that I've already done and getting it into the form that the duplicator will accept. Even for small jobs, though, working with someone you know and trust is important. I was also planning on making tee shirts and baseball caps, but having 250 CDs in your closet is enough storage without also taking space for additional clothing.

In the meantime, I'm working on the website for the band (Adrian) and my label (Hancock Street Records). Everything but the online shopping portion is ready. Most of you have probably gotten here through the Adrian website already and it's not going to change much (I'll be adding lyrics and a page for the new CD). The label site is going to be more extensive. I hope to also flog AMA's music through it and perhaps one or two other local bands. We'll see how that goes...

I also practiced with AMA last night in preparation for our performance Saturday night at the Sellwood Public House. We've added about a dozen new songs, including a half dozen of our own, four of which are debut performances (the other two AMA had performed previously, but they're new to me). The only drawback to this job is that we have to drag the equipment up to the second floor (of course, there is no elevator). So, anyhow, come on in and see us on Saturday night - 9pm.

Final Mixes Half Done

The week before last, we completed rough mixes of the new CD, The Nuclear Family. After listening to them, there were substantial changes for most of them (including cutting new/re-comping vocals for about five of the eleven tracks). We made changes to six of the tracks Thursday evening. I took home the "final" mixes for these tracks and now I only have a (very few) tweaks for them. There is even one song for which I have no more changes. We are converging to completion.

If I get confirmation of availability, I'll go into the studio tomorrow evening and we'll finish the main changes for the other five tracks and put the minor tweaks into the six we've got at a "final" state for a "final final" state. All of these mixes will come home with me, I'll listen, get minor tweaks into the remaining ones and then we'll go to mastering (which should not take more than one more (albeit long) session.

As such, I now have to put the tracks in some order for the CD. I have a couple of choices... I can go with a thematic order - I noticed that the songs I've recorded have an order based on the arc of a relationship, from new to broken. This has a certain artistic appeal, but it ends up having too many slow songs together and has some of the less good songs go towards the front, while some of the better songs get buried towards the back. As such, I'm probably going to stick with the second option, which is a standard ordering having a good intermixing of fast/slow songs with the very best songs going towards the front and less good ones trailing back.

I understand that this raises the question of "good song"/"less good song". Let me state that I don't think there is a real stinker in the bunch. I like all of these songs well enough to have spent a good amount of time on each of them and, in the final analysis, all are listenable, all are well performed (or at least as well as I can), and all are good songs. However, to paraphrase Orwell, "All songs are equally good, but some songs are more equally good than others." So, in placing the tracks on the CD, the "more equally good" stuff will go at the front, while the merely "equally good" stuff will be towards the end. However, note that this ordering is produced by taking into account what I think folks will like and discerning listeners might find songs that they actually like better towards the end. In short, listen to the whole CD and you decide.

Anyhow, we're in the home stretch with the CD. I plan to engage a Photoshop jockey this week to compose the final layout of the CD artwork (with track ordering). With any luck we should be ready for duplication sometime around the end of September. Woot!

P.S. I already have three new songs in the works. Come to the AMA performance at Sellwood Public House on September 19 to hear one of them.

Trying out Melodyne

As many of you know, my vocal skills are somewhat lacking. I would characterize my skill level as "backing vocal" quality. Although I am working to improve and I do sing lead for one or two songs with whomever I'm performing, for the CD, I needed to use pitch correction technology.

Right now, I have Auto-Tune Evo, which is the industry leader in this technology. I realize that I'm still a novice at using the program (basically just moving notes up and down and removing correction on tones that were overly corrected because I still don't understand correction curve editing very well), but the results still don't thrill me. I find there's a subtle distortion in the processed vocals, even when no correction is being done. As such, I'm going to give Melodyne a try. I'll keep all of you posted...

Getting Ready for the CD

Since we're getting to the end of the line as far as mixing goes, it's time to start working on the promotional stuff. I plan to get t-shirts made while having the CD's pressed and start selling them at gigs and on the new website, which I have initially set up on Google today. I'm probably also going to have to set up a Myspace music page (something that I have been avoiding because I don't care much for Myspace, but it seems to be the lingua franca of the music world - sighhh).

Other than that, it's just back to work...