Mediocre is coming out again!

We just finished mixing Mediocre, it will be posted shortly. This mix was pretty simple to do, not a ton of effects used. When I went crazy on it the other day, luckily the program crashed due to a rogue reverb plugin, so when I redid the mix it was much simpler and much better. Just a bit of delay and a plate reverb (breverb audiomidi edition- got it for $5 the other day!), a little eq, some compression, some filtering, bing bang boom.

Since I got my new laptop (a 2 year old IBM T60) last week it has been much easier to mix, with a lot of it being done in dressing rooms, in the van on a ride to a gig, etc.

Paid his Passage is next, we did some fun background vocal sessions Friday night.

Enjoy the music!- Mark

My New Ears

I just picked up some new studio monitors. I had to give Mark's back... as I was borrowing them for the past nine months and he needed them to mix our stuff. Until two days ago, he was mixing everything on headphones (that's the genius of Mark).

Good monitors are very important as they reveal all the musical inadequacies of the tracks, such as my out-of-time shaker on one of the latest tracks... Oof! that was embarrassing, so I'll be promptly deleting that track when enter the basement musical lair this evening. I will be rerecording all the vocal tracks for Mediocre this evening and we'll hopefully have that song back out for you shortly.

So back to the monitors... good monitors also help us mix the songs properly so there isn't too much bass, or drums, etc.  Every song is a learning experience as far as mixing goes.  Quite often, parts I thought would be fantastic and really creative often become painfully unflattering and borderline strident at best after entering the overall mix.  Occasionally there are some nice surprises which originate as mistakes or impromptu performances and work perfectly.

Now again, I must admit I'm a true greenhorn in a studio environment. I'd always left the engineering up to other people, but as budgets tighten and available time diminishes, I must take the lead on some of these tasks... which sometimes incur disastrous results but often reveal that I'm not as dumb as I thought I was.

Jeff

--
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." - Henry Chinaski

Laying the Foundation

We've been working on a new song which we originally planned to release en tandem with Greyer Than (which we just released 30 minutes ago!). It is entitled The Feminine Mystaque. We wrote this four days ago and recorded all the tracks very quickly. We are very excited about this song and think you will be too, though there are a few issues that need addressing;

Because Mark and I have opposing schedules, much of our recording is done solo as we then send tracks to each other to incorporate into the project. Often, I'll begin a song with just guitar to a click to get the meter and feel of the song going. We'll build upon that. I'm finding more often than not that we end up having to rerecord most of each song as we introduce parts. Some parts change the feel of the song and if we have a guitar part that is slightly ahead of the beat, there are no problems if the whole song is ahead of the beat, but when the drums are behind and the guitars are ahead, the tension is not good and makes for a sloppy sounding recording. We discovered this whilst mixing The Feminine Mystaque. So far I've rerecorded all acoustic guitar parts and will subsequently rerecord all vocal parts... This song, being very percussive, requires the tempos be solid for all parts.

We are adamant about adhering to authentic and honest reproduction of our music. We don't use Autotune, or any other fancy studio techniques to enhance our talents. We rely on exactly what we're able to perform with the equipment we have at hand. Much like a photographer taking the time to set up the perfect composition at the time of exposure versus Photoshopping the hell out of the picture afterward, we take a lot of time to properly mic the room and tune the instruments. We use very few mics (never more than five on the drums) and as few tracks as possible.  All of the tracks are recorded on a Korg d3200 recorder, which in 44.1kHz mode, is a 16 track hard disc recorder. It's a wonderful, no-frills recorder which allows us to quickly get all the sounds we need and share them with each other via the web. Mark uses an open-sourced piece of recording software called Reaper and runs this on Ubuntu Linux. We try to keep it simple, efficient and affordable. It's been working wonderfully to date.

I suppose considering the song was written and recorded in a matter of hours, we could probably afford to spend a day or two making sure all the parts are coherent and cohesive. It's very easy to get caught up in the excitement of releasing a song much to the chagrin of the song itself. We're not doing it any favors by rushing.

I'll be revisiting most of the tracks this weekend and we'll hopefully get this one out next week. Check out Greyer Than and let us know what you think!

Thanks,
Jeff

--
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." - Henry Chinaski

Retooling the Works

Often I write and record a song quickly to get the idea down on tape (hard drive) so I don't lose the idea. These become our demos from which we then work and either rerecord or modify accordingly. There have been a few songs we've released (Mediocre, FWIW, Say When) where we thought they were complete and never listened to again... This sometimes works and other times does not. After listening to these songs again recently, I've realized there are better ways to approach these songs and some parts need reworking. Sometimes it takes me months to come up with perfect revisions in my head. 

I'm going to be rerecording some of the tracks on these songs and Mark will be remixing to fit these into the current 'sound' we have for our latest releases. As Mark will tell you though, there is a fine line drawn between the existing and finished product and overworking the song is easy to do. As with Demantelez, Mark realized after three mixes that the first mix was the best and that's what we released. I would assume most artists go through this but we are trying to keep this as organic as possible, keeping the final versions as close to the original demos and inspiration as possible. Often, reworking a song causes the song to lose its original intent and feeling.

We're going to revisit Mediocre, Say When and FWIW over the next few weeks and will hopefully release the final versions as well as a couple new songs. Stay tuned!

--
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." - Henry Chinaski

New song!!

Jeff recorded a new song, Demantelez, the other day, it was mixed Saturday, doing the final bounce now, then it will be out (hopefully today?). What amazed me about Demantelez was that I put the tracks up, and the song was 99% there. A little bit of EQ, little bit of compression, a few other minor things, no edits, no autotune, no reverb (!). I have to say I really like this one. As a bassist, I didn't even have any temptation to redo the bass part, it was perfect as is. Pleas elet us know what you think when it hits (hopefully today! I said that twice now, pressure's on!)
Greyer Than has been pulled back for the moment, we realized that we have some tweaking to do but look for it very soon, a few weeks at the most.

Mixing...

Yes, Jeff is not kidding, I actually was mixing this weekend. It's been a while. And I am doing it all without a real working computer music setup...I'm working on that!! But Greyer Than is turning out to be a unique song that is very catchy. The first 2 mixes were sent to Jeff for some thoughts, you'll be able to hear it soon.

Fire in the Firebox

Mark and I have decided to get cooking again after a several month hiatus. We've been busy with other projects, some domestic and others musical and feel now is the time to put the originals back on the front burner. We have a back catalog of several songs completed or near completion that either need final mixing or parts rerecorded; we're doing that now! I've finally gotten the hang of my Korg d3200 recorder and am getting some good sounds in the basement studio.

I've experimented with drum placement and have decided on setting them up against the wall with the kick drum being six inches from the wall. I then miked up the outer-head and placed two condensers over the toms and snare, left and right. The sounds is amazing! I don't need to add any effects as the reverberation of the basement and bounce-back from the close proximity to the wall gives the drums a depth and warmth that can usually only be found by adding reverb and delay (short of having at $100,000 wooden floor/wall/ceiling studio at my disposal). You'll be hearing the new drum sounds in the next release, Greyer Than which should be done shortly. I finished the lead guitar tracks last night and Mark is mixing them in as I write this...

Thanks for reading and we'll speak again soon!
Jeff