Mare Nostrum/Me & The Fly - 280415

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Big Gulag-shaped window opened up for me today!

MARE...

Spent the morning editing/dubbing-up the track in CE5. Not fully convinced that it will make the final album - I think that will depend on how satisfied I am with mix. But it should at least feature on an EP - especially after all the time and effort I put into the bastid. Time will tell...

...FLY

Spent the afternoon mixing and mastering the track in CE5/AA3. Ended up with five different mixes and I had issues with all of them, but I reckon I got them sorted on the fifth mix. Nice, big, beaty track and the title track for the first EP!

Having spent all day in the Gulag, I will be glad to return to the real world for the rest of the week, if only to give me ears a rest!

See yah when I see yah...

Regards,


djp

Mare Nostrum - 270415

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Tracked 9 vocal parts and 1 sleighbells part on the Gulag Mobile. Audio cleanup in AA3 and inserted into the relevant project file in CE5.

A lot of editing required. There are tuning...er...conflicts between the vocal parts and the pre-existing musical parts. I think I can work around them. but it may require a bit of ingenuity on my part. Should be fun.

One of the issues I have with this track is because I cannot work out the tempo of the track exactly, based as it is on a live drum track, I'll have to do my dub delays by ear. Should be fun (part deux).

This should be my penultimate tracking session for the album. I may have one more to do, but that won't be for weeks yet. In the meantime, I will edit MARE... and then crack on with the mixing/mastering. Should be fun (part drei).

More work tomorrow.

Regards,


djp

Tropes and Memes - 260415

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Edited/dubbed-up in CE5. Mostly on the MIDI drum parts. Had to track one of the VST soft synths (Prologue Forum Romanum) to audio because the synth tended to hang. Tidied up the ending and the track is now ready to mix/master. Sounds immense...;-).

The plan for tomorrow is to track the vocals for MARE NOSTRUM. That's unless "shtuff" happens...

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

Gomorrah/Mare Nostrum/FCA Boots/Tropes and Memes/Everybody Calls Me Darren - 240415

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

GOMORRAH

Edited/dubbed-up the vocal/Squier Strat/MIDI drum parts in CE5. Everything goes so much more smoothly when the PC decides to behave itself - just sayin'...

The track is ready to mix/master and it's HUGE!!!. You're going to love it - or absolutely hate it...;-).

The track bears a very passing resemblance to this...

As for the other tracks, I've had to make a few executive decisions. I'm kinda running out of time and I have a lot of tracks to work on.The next few months could be a little difficult what with business travel, holidays and such, so I have to be realistic about what I can achieve.

So here goes...

• MARE NOSTRUM - I will record choral vocal parts for this track next week - definitely. I have a "window" which I plan to exploit to the full, and this track is window-shaped...
• FCA BOOTS - I'm not going to bother with vocals on this - just go straight to mix/master stage
• TROPES AND MEMES - ditto
• EVERYBODY CALLS ME DARREN - I'm going to abandon this track. It's a silly idea that doesn't actually add any value to the album. In fact, possibly quite the reverse..

So that leaves me with three tracks to work on over the next month. I plan to release an EP at some stage in June, so I will concentrate on the tracks for that initially. Stay tooned for further news...

Regards,


djp

Gomorrah - 230415

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Pretty much finished editing/dubbing-up the vocal parts in CE5. Some small tweaks required, but nothing major.

Also edited the Squier Strat parts and started dubbing them up. Should be finished tomorrow.

Lots of trouble with the PC. I had fantasies of taking a sledgehammer to it when the new PC is in place and bedded down.

Must dream on for a while yet, though...;-).

Regards,


djp

Gomorrah - 220415

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Edited the vocal parts in CE5. Almost fully satisfied with them - more work to do tomorrow.

I had a lot of tech-y issues with my PC, which are basically because the damn thing is ancient. I am negotiating the process of upgrading my PC for future projects, although I have some concerns re. the compatibility of OS with CE5. But I may be able to get around that.

A thing for the future...

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

You Have My Heart Scalded - 130415

Sponsored by "Added April 2015".

Finished editing and dubbing-up in CE5. The dub delays were very much a case of trail and (lots of error), but the track sounds fine and ready to mix/master. Time to move on.

Regards,


djp

Watching The News With The Sound Off/You Have My Heart Scalded - 120415

Sponsored by "Dronescape".

WATCHING...

I'd tracked a couple of spoken word parts for this track a few weeks back, but when I checked them today for editing purposes, I discovered that there were artefacts from the audio cleanup process which I couldn't remove or "work around". So I was faced with the choice of tracking the parts again, or of scrapping them entirely. I chose the latter, as I have no guarantee that the problem won't occur again with new parts. Executive decision - get over it...

...SCALDED

Edited the various vocal parts in CE5. Almost fully sorted - tomorrow should complete that part of the process.

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

Stiltwalker In The Wind - 090415

Sponsored by "Depeche Mode".

Finished off editing/dubbing-up in CE5. I had to tweak one of the Squier Strat parts too - sounds much better now.

I had a lot of issues with my PC today. I think one of VST delay plugins is very "needy" memory-wise and it caused CE5 to freeze, almost invariably after I'd made some change without saving it. Changing the plugin sorted that out, although the alternative plugin doesn't quite have the character of the original. But it'll do...

The track is now ready to mix/master.

More work tomorrow. Time to move on...

Regards,


djp

Stiltwalker In The Wind - 080415

Sponsored by "Delia Derbyshire".

Edited most of the vocal parts in CE5. Not 100% satisfied with them yet, but I'll work on them again tomorrow.

Also did a a spot of dubbing-up on some of the other parts. Sounding well.

Tomorrow should do it!

Regards,


djp

Stiltwalker In The Wind - 060415

Sponsored by "David Gerard".

Spent the morning dubbing-up the Squier Strat and MIDI drum parts in CE5.

Found it hard to concentrate today for some reason. The dub delays are not quite as tight as I would like them to be, but they're probably fine. Sounds like a spot of "human intervention". That's the spin I'll put on it anyway.

Work (as in paid employment) tomorrow, but I'll be back working on the album on Wednesday (hopefully...).

Regards,


djp