Where are you at as we head into the final days? - 2008/02/28 01:04I am taking Thursday and Friday off just to finish up. I am burning vacation days for RPM, that's committment (or stupidity). Here's where I stand heading into tonight. (Wednesday at 6pm EST)
I have 11 songs that are coming in around 45 minutes.
5 are done, but probably need another mix.
1 needs another cut at the Vox, but that's about it.
1 needs some work on the solo
4 have arrangement issues, and need work in many areas.
It's going to be tight...
How are you doing? If you're done, go gloat somewhere else, we don't really like you right now.
Cheers,
Gary
PS-last year I did 8 songs that came in at 38 minutes. PPS- I forgot how much I did in 2006, but it was closer to this year.
Thankfully the challenge is 10 songs or 35 minutes, whichever comes first.
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We all got to go home drop the main vocal on Mmmm - check quality of strummed/doubled guitar/volume - sense of chorusness fade in vocal - noise
Termite blues - guitar volume?
Place in my heart - instrumental break volumes - check/improve
New ralgia blues - vocal boominess - tweak
Dixie - intro mandolin redo
Twilight - edit a few notes - CELLO??
finished mixing
Calvary Rainin Unholy Ruckus Lived in the Town
other ie miscellaneous tweaks
It just happens But I won't Say
basically I could be finished but I wouldn't be satisfied knowing there is tweaking time. I have heavy work days ahead (thurs and friday) and a 12 girl sleepover friday night for my eldest's birthday. Nipping out to the post office on Saturday morning looks tempting
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Yup, I'm planning on 'calling in busy' on Friday too.
TO DO!?
Album art - probably the same monochrome zag that's getting 'light-scribbled' onto the disk. Continuity or laziness? You decide.
Tracking? I hope not.
Mixing? Yeah, most of my hours from here til the wee on Friday night. There's always room for improvement there. There's one spot where I need to make some acoustic space between two guitars, and In general I'm still debating a dB or two change in some drum tracks and vocal levels. Ain't mix automation grand?
Listening/Balancing/Mastering? I'll reserve a little time for that. The album's program order is 'almost' set in stone, And I'm not going to obsess as as much as I did last year about the final output - knowing that I'll always want to revisit the mix and change something later.
Total time? Total number of tracks? That gets a little complicated; I made a 4-song suite out of Mick's "the RPM wall song" lyric. Do I preserve the gapless continuity and burn it as one song, or do I get 4 songs' worth of material out of it? Do I need to return to active duty any material that I've chucked at this point? Hopefully I'll have figured this out by... well, tomorrow at the latest.
No, really, I'm relaxed and in control
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NOTRATSMOLES
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 02:17aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....we're done,but we also got a case of the nastiest tuberculosis ever....since we all sleep in the same bed, it goes without saying that one of us is always sick or pregnant..
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Wrote the final lyrics and recorded them tonight. Think I'm done with all of the recording now. Just the bedevilled drums left to program, that'll likely take all of tomorrow to get right. Might take a break now and again to work on some album art. I actually bought a new printer yesterday. And with the album in mind, I chose one that can print om printable cd's. That'll be fun to play around with!
Friday's mixing and trixing and poking things that need poking. And toasting a couple of cd's.
Saturday comes with the holy moment of submittal. The closure.
Then I'll get plastered and spend the evening listening to what all you other dudes and dudettes have been up to these past couple of weeks. Kind of a private RPM listening party, I guess...
S. Dude
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Perhaps I will add this to my list of things to do. Only after the album is done of course...
Ok, I am off to the studio for another marathon session.
Cheers.
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winterstar
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 02:39Tory has just finished mixing the album and we have track titles all nailed down. Album art is lined up and ready to print. Check out our blog for detailed info on the album.
We are very grateful to be this far along, even if there are only two days left.
-R.T.
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brykmantra
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 02:51Oh man, my projects a mess. I've got a couple of songs that are refusing to shape up and "bring it to the table", so there's the five (or six?) I've uploaded so far, and some junk.
Oscar Wilde once said, "I spent all morning going over the draft of one of my manuscripts; I took out a comma. In the afternoon, I put it back in."
In my case, I spend all weekend adding a couple of sections to a song, and all of yesterday evening taking them out.
I'm DOOMED, I tell you.
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMED.
Other than that, it's going okay.
I was going to the Irish Festival on Saturday, but not it looks like I'll be sleeping on Saturday afternoon following a necessary all-nighter, and going to the NTIF on Sunday instead.
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Lightbox
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 03:18Here's where it stands with me. I finished recording roughs on 10 songs in 3 weeks for the rock project then finished recording 10 more (previously written) songs in one day for the acoustic project. Last night I decided that I only had time to more or less finish one album in terms of fixes and mixes. So I looked at the two efforts and picked the ten which are speaking the most to me. About half came from rock effort and half from acoustic. Today I spent the day reworking those ten, trying to take into account advice by various folks and especially Gary (check out his stuff on the web, it's great). So today I learned some new ways to get drums into the work and have been tweaking. Also have been thinking about how the songs hold together in terms of theme and so on. Tomorrow, after work, I will do what I can to master the songs and that will be that. This has been a very helpful experience and I definitely feel my recording chops have grown a lot through putting demands on myself. Long way to go though... if you want to check the new tracks as they now stand look under rf berks (those of you not otherwise occupied of course). Hope the electric company doesn't let the lights go out anymore today.
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11 songs. 45 mins. I have the CD in an addressed jiffy bag next to me. Off to the post office tomorrow. Then all I have to do is put it all on the internet, do copies for all my family and friends, clear all of the enormous wav files off my hard drive, do the washing up before it starts to go mouldy, get some sleep, have a bath...
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I have now got 8 mixed tracks, two to finish tomorrow and two waiting on information from the galaxy - one lovely cello lady, and one lyric credit dilema as to whether (or whither) further effort is expended.
Right. I have an hour before work tomorrow, and an evening of chaos getting ready for my daughter's party tomorrow night. I have offered to cook on friday for the party in the hope of not being hassled on thursday night. Headphones to work tomorrow for that precious lunch-hour. Album art - fucking album art. I was really proud of my album art last year. Might have to rant about that this weekend. some great photos by my mate SteveFE and slickly produced (Disc Cover on the Mac is a great program) but so far this year all I have is a distinctive black n white pic and a track listing. The working title stands. "Shake My Bones"
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11 songs. 45 mins. I have the CD in an addressed jiffy bag next to me. Off to the post office tomorrow. Then all I have to do is put it all on the internet, do copies for all my family and friends, clear all of the enormous wav files off my hard drive, do the washing up before it starts to go mouldy, get some sleep, have a bath...
GO AWAY!!!!
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navonski
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 04:38need to mix four songs. Two of them need a few fixes that will mean more overdubs. Hope to fix those two tonight, and mix the other two tomorrow. master the whole thing tomorrow night. Finish the artwork friday and give it a final listen. Friday night do any fixes that need be and saturday morning put it in the mail. It will be a busy couple of days....
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Raleigh
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 06:41Everything is done: including a last minute track. But the mix is a mess! After scoruing through the posts here, I have a better idea of how to do it... but I'm running out of time! I have songs with over 20 tracks! (Sound effects, but still...)
I have album art, but no $$ to reproduce it. I barely have enough to put it into the mail!
I do not have the luxury of "vacation days" as I bartend. Bleah.
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BrokenPromiseKeeper
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 06:45I am starting to feel a slight worrisome feeling, hence being up til midnight with work tomorrow coming sooner every minute. still have to finish one song, figure out the sequence, then do the cover. it will happen.
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transmit
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 06:50I'm surprisingly not panicking, though I probably should be. 26 minutes of material done done done....but I have two songs that have barely begun. I have had INCREDIBLE luck recently with getting a new song done within 36-48 hours, so I think I'm going to make it. It might not be my best effort, but I'll actually finish, and that's what counts, right?
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I'm going to use the 16 bit mixes I've made after each session as my masters and put them on in the order they were started. It may not be the best sequence but I don't have the time to listen to it all more than five or six more times before it's gotta be in the mail.
Artwork will take me an hour to design and I get to use my new Lightscribe burner to print on the back of the cd! That's gonna be cool.
Yesterday I didn't think I would finish but today I finished 5 of the 9 songs!
-
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deritastudio
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Re:Where are you at as we head into the final days - 2008/02/28 17:39I still have 4 songs that need vocals, and two of those only have a guitar rough track down. Vocalist is coming over Friday evening and we're going to pull an all nighter. Post office is open on the 1st until 3PM yay!
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1) Drop of my CD at RPM HQ tomorrow 2)Go into the witness protection program for a while to hide from my music, as if I hear this CD one more time I will probably shoot myself 3) Go to Las Vegas for 4 days starting this Sunday to drink and gamble myself into a shallow grave in the desert 4) Come back reborn and renewed to face the music and begin playing out again around Portsmouth with an arsenal of new material
The end...
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This year, I decided that artwork and packaging could wait until after February had ended, and that the time would be better spent in expanding my sonic horizons. Not that I would have had much choice, because the pictures I took with cover art in mind were MIA for a while and I haven't received them back from the lab yet (yes, I shot them on actual film. Remember that stuff?) The fine people at RPM will have to settle for a lightscribe disc this time around. Next week I'll (hopefully) send the album out for printing. But I think it was a good decision to allow myself the complete month to record, as things have really started to come together over the past couple of days.
I still have one ambient track to write and record, a vocal recitation to track, one song that needs a complete rearrangement, a few that need another pass at mixing, and then a final mastering. Hopefully I won't have to export that master track more than once or twice, because it takes about an hour to render.
So time is running out, and I'll be cutting it way too close for my comfort, but it's actually more exciting this way. It reminds me of scribbling out my homework in the last few minutes before the bell rings! Uh, not that I ever did that. A lot.
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