A deep breath
ah! (and all of the things you think that would mean). I am exhausted on every possible level. Working on a record, or to put it better, having a piece of work hanging around my neck for the last two years has been an immense pressure.
It feels as though no-one on this planet could have worked more hours over the past two years than me!
I swear it. I feel barely alive. Wow.
Ok down to business..
Mastering a 3D album
Mastering is huge subject and a contextual process, so to explain my thoughts on it fully would take about a week so I will nut-shell it for you.
When I sit in my studio I am mixing recorded audio and I am following the journey of making the instruments and that particular recorded moment, true.
True to what it actually sounded like at the time in the room. This in itself is totally different to what most people who make music are trying to achieve.
Most people are trying to achieve what sounds "good" as opposed to being a "true representation" and with me being a documentarian, aiming to make something sound "good" is completely irrelevant.
This includes writing/performing/recording/mixing and mastering.
What the mastering part is, is a process in which I have to try to make sure that the sound of the record gets to you, in as close a representation of what it truly sounds like as possible.
For example: The world cannot all experience the record in the room where I mixed it so as soon as somebody is listening to the record in their player, in their particular room it sounds totally different. Well times that by the population of the world and you can imagine the context of trying to get it to sound true over the average.
It is never going to sound right on all systems and I cannot rectify that but because "right" does not really exist then it just "IS" what it "IS".
ie wherever you are listening to it is a representation of where your listening to it too.
When I am mastering the mixed songs, I am eqing them, trying to put onto them the frequencies that the room I have mixed them in was fooling me into thinking was actually there. This is what gets lost when you get to hear them - the room acoustic that I completed them in.
Another part of mastering - more commonly known - is to get the songs to sound "loud" so that you can compete with other artists.
This is quite simply your typical macho stuff - "I am a man, I have more muscles than you therefore I am better" ie "My song is louder than yours, so it is better".
Well I have absolutely no interest in playing this sort of game. If "Where do we go from here? UP" is quieter that somebody else's album and then a person who is listening thinks "Oh this is not as good because it is not a loud" then that is their loss.
The odds for why not to make it sound squashed and loud - far out weigh the reasons of why to make it sound that way.
Transparent Mastering
The main reason that I know I have followed the right direction in this area all comes back to the album being a document of a period of time and NOT a game.
Why?
If you listen to most music nowadays it is compressed and limited to hell, it sounds terrible and do you know why?
Number one: Music is not dynamic anymore, there is no realness to it. It is designed to be on in the background at work, through ipod headphones or played in a club. There is no dynamic within the track, there is no louder parts than others, there is no "moments" that rise and fall, it is all very flat.
This is designed so that the general public can keep sitting at their computer with the radio on and there will be no sudden "loud" part to a song, nothing to distract you from the trance of your daily routine - background music.
This has basically stripped away dynamic feeling from music. The fact that you cannot be disturbed from your computer by a moment in a song that suddenly swelled (think orchestral music) is the wrong direction for music to go in, in my opinion.
Because these usual techniques make the sound flatter and squashed that is how most peoples music gets LOUD and that is what they want the "My song is louder than yours" scenario.
"Where do we go from here? UP" is as true to it's true dynamic form as I could possibly make it. So in this sense I hope that it is a fresh difference to most music that you could experience.
I have made every effort that I could to make my mastering as transparent as possible and I have been very careful with the audio.
Mastering is a contextual process and obviously if I was making "Hard Rock" music then volume and that compressed sound might matter - anyway what I am trying to say here is "Where do we go from here? UP" has been preserved as best as possible.
It is actually not a quiet record but that is not my point. My point is that people think that mastering is something that it is not. Mastering is the same as any creative scenario - contextual and in this scenario the context is "Realness".
Replicating my acoustic environment is what this mastering process has been all about.
3D
I have really tried to put the album across in it's 3D space, I have been developing as I have been going and am pretty happy with the results. Depending on where you are sitting (in comparison to your speakers) you will get a completely different experience of the record. Try it out. You should be able to "see" in your minds eye exactly where the narrator/singer is positioned and where the rest of the music is positioned, it's a deep level to the album.
There is never a more extreme version of this than through headphones. If you listen to the record out loud, directly in front of your speakers first and on your next listen you listen through headphones you will find you have two different albums.
This is intentional.
Whilst listening out loud you are invited to be a part of the room within which the record was recorded (along with the mystical magic that surrounds the room) and you can observe all the goings on in front of you but when listening through headphones you actually become the room itself, the room is you.
Try it.
The end is near
So in terms of the audio, my work with "Where do we go from here? UP" is finished.
It has taken me a great number of years to get here.
I have no firm release date to give to you yet but rest assured things are moving ahead exactly as they should.
It will not be long.
I can't wait to share this record with you.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Friday, 21 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 5 - The Magic
'Where do we go from here? UP' is not only a document of a time period presented to you real and in a way that is raw but it also touches upon the fact that there are things within the room or within our lives that we don't see or hear and we can't always capture or document.
This is duality of 'Where do we go from here? UP'.
Because the songs are a narrative then the vocal is what leads the moment, or perhaps present the moment to you the listener and within in that itself it demanded that I did not mix the band parts too action packed or too loud. It is much more subtle and gentle than you would think, very quiet and very still no "big" bass or drum moments - we served these songs gently and connected to a very beautiful thing, that In a lot of respects sounds totally different to any record that I have ever heard.
These performances are not ashamed to be rough, to be raw, to be quiet and to even be underplayed sometimes. They are unashamed of what they are and as I said earlier as a producer I have had to raise my bar to a much more mature level and let go of thinking that everything has to blow away the listener in volume or be "Action packed". There is beauty in the stillness.
However what was there, sometimes within and sometimes around these performances was the Magic. The moments that were put on straight after the live take to quickly try and capture what ever was in the room with us that we could not hear.
I originally thought that this extra layer would feel more cartoon like, more Disney esque but in actuality and after much work they simply come across better by being treated more real and more like spirits or destiny or actual "Soul - Feelings" that too have actually been captured on tape.
So for instance there are many combinations though out the album that represent the difference between the "live band" take and the "Magic".
All of this surrounds the narrator as he tells you his tale of reconnecting with magic. In unfolds much like a story book and the "Magic" parts can be as subtle as a Guitar part that appears to be floating above the narrator symbolizing a future event - to a much more obvious, Harp and violin part that is coming from some fare off land and into the room.
The difference being that instead of these "Magic" parts tuning in from some nether world it is as if they ARE actually there in the room with the narrator as he tells you the story.
This is duality of 'Where do we go from here? UP'.
Because the songs are a narrative then the vocal is what leads the moment, or perhaps present the moment to you the listener and within in that itself it demanded that I did not mix the band parts too action packed or too loud. It is much more subtle and gentle than you would think, very quiet and very still no "big" bass or drum moments - we served these songs gently and connected to a very beautiful thing, that In a lot of respects sounds totally different to any record that I have ever heard.
These performances are not ashamed to be rough, to be raw, to be quiet and to even be underplayed sometimes. They are unashamed of what they are and as I said earlier as a producer I have had to raise my bar to a much more mature level and let go of thinking that everything has to blow away the listener in volume or be "Action packed". There is beauty in the stillness.
However what was there, sometimes within and sometimes around these performances was the Magic. The moments that were put on straight after the live take to quickly try and capture what ever was in the room with us that we could not hear.
I originally thought that this extra layer would feel more cartoon like, more Disney esque but in actuality and after much work they simply come across better by being treated more real and more like spirits or destiny or actual "Soul - Feelings" that too have actually been captured on tape.
So for instance there are many combinations though out the album that represent the difference between the "live band" take and the "Magic".
All of this surrounds the narrator as he tells you his tale of reconnecting with magic. In unfolds much like a story book and the "Magic" parts can be as subtle as a Guitar part that appears to be floating above the narrator symbolizing a future event - to a much more obvious, Harp and violin part that is coming from some fare off land and into the room.
The difference being that instead of these "Magic" parts tuning in from some nether world it is as if they ARE actually there in the room with the narrator as he tells you the story.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 4 - Different to the opposite Producer
As you can imagine with this real "In the room" sound, 'Where do we go from here? UP' demanded that the performances not be manipulated in any way. They are real and true to themselves and do not live within the scope that most people make records under.
It is not about a nice sound. It just is what it is. A document. True.
As a producer this was a huge step for me to leave things raw and go with the moments and to not try to make things sound better. I have respected the moments that were recorded and that is all.
The top of my list is to respect the actual song - above all else. So everything has been created to serve the song THEN the moment because that is also how we record - to serve the song and through that we find the moment.
This is not a pop record, it is a document and any work that I have done as a producer on it, is to be see-through and to serve it for what it is. I have not come in here to manipulate it to be something that I would "like" or "wish" for it to sound like.
The only time that anything has been manipulated is if it was something that was a technical fault to the point of getting in the way of the listener listening to the song and/or moment. If there are any, what you could call musical or technical faults within the music itself then it has stayed in the finished record as a document unless it got in the way of the song or the moment.
It is not about a nice sound. It just is what it is. A document. True.
As a producer this was a huge step for me to leave things raw and go with the moments and to not try to make things sound better. I have respected the moments that were recorded and that is all.
The top of my list is to respect the actual song - above all else. So everything has been created to serve the song THEN the moment because that is also how we record - to serve the song and through that we find the moment.
This is not a pop record, it is a document and any work that I have done as a producer on it, is to be see-through and to serve it for what it is. I have not come in here to manipulate it to be something that I would "like" or "wish" for it to sound like.
The only time that anything has been manipulated is if it was something that was a technical fault to the point of getting in the way of the listener listening to the song and/or moment. If there are any, what you could call musical or technical faults within the music itself then it has stayed in the finished record as a document unless it got in the way of the song or the moment.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 3 - Panning with space
So with the individual instruments Eq'd in respect to themselves and to create the space between the players I was left to use the space of everything in between 100% left on a speaker and 100% right on a speaker.
To use the Vocal track as my example - I would now have a vocal that had been Eq'd to sound real just like it would have been there in the room on the day it was recorded. The EQ would also have determined how close to you (the listener) that the singer was.
Now If I just panned (moved) the vocal to the left speaker or right speaker (in varying degrees from 0% to 100%) to create where the singer is placed, then that would still not create the 3D space of the studio for you to hear and for you to feel like you was there with in the room. I needed something more.
What would this be?
Subtle delays.
Instead of panning the vocal (and all of the other instruments) to create it's space I would put a subtle delay created precisely to represent my studio, on to the vocal track. So the vocals needed to be placed at the fore front - to do this I would created subtle delayed replicas of the vocal track and place them behind it and use a blend of the delay either more in the left or more in the right speaker to create a 3D space within which the vocal would sit.
For example if the guitarist was sitting to the left and slightly behind the vocalist then the guitars EQ would be slightly thinner then I would put a subtle room delay onto the Guitars Right channel and not pan the guitar at all but by putting the delay in the right speaker it creates the illusion to you ear (because you are hearing a slightly late guitar in the right) that the guitar is over on the left.
This took me months to get right.
So imagine that - with all of the recorded tracks combined and you can start to imagine the 3D space and "in the room" sound that I have managed to put across.
To use the Vocal track as my example - I would now have a vocal that had been Eq'd to sound real just like it would have been there in the room on the day it was recorded. The EQ would also have determined how close to you (the listener) that the singer was.
Now If I just panned (moved) the vocal to the left speaker or right speaker (in varying degrees from 0% to 100%) to create where the singer is placed, then that would still not create the 3D space of the studio for you to hear and for you to feel like you was there with in the room. I needed something more.
What would this be?
Subtle delays.
Instead of panning the vocal (and all of the other instruments) to create it's space I would put a subtle delay created precisely to represent my studio, on to the vocal track. So the vocals needed to be placed at the fore front - to do this I would created subtle delayed replicas of the vocal track and place them behind it and use a blend of the delay either more in the left or more in the right speaker to create a 3D space within which the vocal would sit.
For example if the guitarist was sitting to the left and slightly behind the vocalist then the guitars EQ would be slightly thinner then I would put a subtle room delay onto the Guitars Right channel and not pan the guitar at all but by putting the delay in the right speaker it creates the illusion to you ear (because you are hearing a slightly late guitar in the right) that the guitar is over on the left.
This took me months to get right.
So imagine that - with all of the recorded tracks combined and you can start to imagine the 3D space and "in the room" sound that I have managed to put across.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 2 - 3D EQ
The 3D album
As the producer of 'Where do we go from here? UP' I want to present these eleven moments to you, as the listener, in the most real way as possible. I want you to be be-able to feel the moment in the room just as it was and to feel where the narrators connection to song is coming from.
Ultimately I only have two speakers or a set of headphones to present these moments to you with.
This is where a large portion of my time went. Most things that I originally did came off as a manipulation and sounded too "good".
So I went back to basics.
I started with the "band in the room" takes and removed all overdubs for the first stage of mixing.
Creating the 3D space
First of I would start with the Vocals and the Piano.
I would have my recorded vocal track and it would start off sounding very flat. How on earth would I get this to sound like it was here in this room, in that very moment? The reason it did not by default is as I said in my previous entry - because the studio is so small the microphone(s) on every instrument had to be very very close thus stripping any space or room from the recording.
Keep in mind I also could not create anything that sounded manipulated. I needed to get it to sound like the reality if what it was, what it truly was before the limitations of the studio had stripped it of it's true beauty.
Through much trail and error It ended being a combination of things.
In the stereo field I only have what is in-between 100% Left and 100% Right, plus the perceived closeness to the listener as low end (BASS) and farther away from the listener as thinner top end (treble) - to work with.
This is how our ears work to so I knew that in theory it would be possible.
EQ - Removing Microphones
I started with EQ. EQ = High, middle and low frequencies.
Because every instrument had been recorded close, they were all very bassy. Generally things that are closer have more bottom end (Bass) and get thinner with more top end (Treble) the further away they are.
Imagine some one whispering in your ear, it is quite "breathy" and bassy in tone - much like a night club from the outside, but don't confuse that with the fact that they are whispering close and a night club is loud and you are far away from it, that is volume not EQ.
Things can be quiet and bassy but can also be loud but thin. The difference between this is what the relationship that EQ has with space.
So by removing some bottom end from the vocal it would appear to get further away - but because this is a real recording I could not do it too much before it would sound manipulated - I just needed to remove what the microphone had put there. Basically trying to remove the microphone so that you can actually hear my voice as though you were here in the room with me naturally.
This was a hugely complex undertaking and took some highly skilled work and effort and countless hours to get the right mix of, because not only did I have to do this with the Vocals but also with Drums (snare, overheads, cymbals, bass drum), Bass, Acoustic Guitars and Pianos.
Then after individually doing the EQ on the instruments to not only stay true to themselves, to remove to microphones but also to (just within EQ) to create the space around them individually and then in comparison to each other.
This left me with still a flat 2D recording but I had put the space that was originally in the room between the musicians back in - in terms of EQ.
As the producer of 'Where do we go from here? UP' I want to present these eleven moments to you, as the listener, in the most real way as possible. I want you to be be-able to feel the moment in the room just as it was and to feel where the narrators connection to song is coming from.
Ultimately I only have two speakers or a set of headphones to present these moments to you with.
This is where a large portion of my time went. Most things that I originally did came off as a manipulation and sounded too "good".
So I went back to basics.
I started with the "band in the room" takes and removed all overdubs for the first stage of mixing.
Creating the 3D space
First of I would start with the Vocals and the Piano.
I would have my recorded vocal track and it would start off sounding very flat. How on earth would I get this to sound like it was here in this room, in that very moment? The reason it did not by default is as I said in my previous entry - because the studio is so small the microphone(s) on every instrument had to be very very close thus stripping any space or room from the recording.
Keep in mind I also could not create anything that sounded manipulated. I needed to get it to sound like the reality if what it was, what it truly was before the limitations of the studio had stripped it of it's true beauty.
Through much trail and error It ended being a combination of things.
In the stereo field I only have what is in-between 100% Left and 100% Right, plus the perceived closeness to the listener as low end (BASS) and farther away from the listener as thinner top end (treble) - to work with.
This is how our ears work to so I knew that in theory it would be possible.
EQ - Removing Microphones
I started with EQ. EQ = High, middle and low frequencies.
Because every instrument had been recorded close, they were all very bassy. Generally things that are closer have more bottom end (Bass) and get thinner with more top end (Treble) the further away they are.
Imagine some one whispering in your ear, it is quite "breathy" and bassy in tone - much like a night club from the outside, but don't confuse that with the fact that they are whispering close and a night club is loud and you are far away from it, that is volume not EQ.
Things can be quiet and bassy but can also be loud but thin. The difference between this is what the relationship that EQ has with space.
So by removing some bottom end from the vocal it would appear to get further away - but because this is a real recording I could not do it too much before it would sound manipulated - I just needed to remove what the microphone had put there. Basically trying to remove the microphone so that you can actually hear my voice as though you were here in the room with me naturally.
This was a hugely complex undertaking and took some highly skilled work and effort and countless hours to get the right mix of, because not only did I have to do this with the Vocals but also with Drums (snare, overheads, cymbals, bass drum), Bass, Acoustic Guitars and Pianos.
Then after individually doing the EQ on the instruments to not only stay true to themselves, to remove to microphones but also to (just within EQ) to create the space around them individually and then in comparison to each other.
This left me with still a flat 2D recording but I had put the space that was originally in the room between the musicians back in - in terms of EQ.
Monday, 17 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 1 - Recording
One of my greatest moments of listening to any form of music was about five years ago whilst listening to Robert Johnson.
Robert Johnson is a delta blues player from the 1930's and is in my opinion the master.
However what struck me to my core was nothing musical. It was the sound recording, it was the legend of the recordings. When putting this music on I felt like I was listening in to a moment in time some Seventy years ago. On these recordings you can hear this, at the time unknown musician, putting his songs down on tape with one microphone, I felt like I was there with him in the room.
He was saying to me "This is not an art form Richard, this is a document of me in the 1930's recording my songs and you are now here with me whilst I play them".
It was spine chilling.
It was then that I fully realized what had been trying to come through me for about a decade - Music does not have to be presented in some 'Spectacular' way or polished or in a way that we perceive to be perfect. It can literally be a document of a time period and can be true unto itself - just on that level.
But I wanted to take this further, I wanted 'Where do we go from here? UP' to acknowledge itself as a document and not be ashamed or manipulated in any way that would take it away from it truly is. What I also wanted though was to serve the songs and to recognize what this time period actually was - because on a higher level the actual songs themselves are also 'Diary' songs - as in documents of moments of my life. So you could say "Why not just record them on one microphone?"
Well that in itself would be creating something that would come of as "artistic" over the fact of it being "true". I did not want an "Artistic" record but I wanted a true document. That would mean true on every possible level. A true document of the Vocals - Pianos - Drums - Guitars and Bass not only unto themselves but as a whole a true document of the whole band in that particular moment in this particular room.
True foremost to the place that these songs were coming from. Let the narrator tell his tale and let the moment in the room strengthen that.
They are not made up. They are moments of true magic that actually happened.
So with each instrument being given its own microphone(s) we would be ready to go.
Keep in mind that all of the songs are recorded live i.e everyone playing at the same time - just like you would see a live band, real and raw. To push the stakes even further as a producer I try to demand that we record no more than 5/6 takes of each song because usually anything further than that creates a more "thought out" piece which does not sound like an document of time but starts to sound more like a "Record".
"Record" as in what "Records" have evolved into since Robert Johnson - which is a manipulation of sound to either earn money or to please an audiophile ear very rare is it that you get to hear a real moment.
When I was writing 'Where do we go from here? UP' I was writing many songs a day and trying to catch just one each day in the net, then I would put that song down on my dictaphone and forget about it.
After having maybe 50 songs in a 30 day period I had no-idea what we really did have, I was just following the journey.
A couple of months later the band and I came in to record these songs. I would listen to a song from my dictaphone on the morning - once - then when the band came in I would play it to them - live on the piano - tell them the chords, give them maybe 10 - 15 minutes to read the lyrics and think to themselves and that was it. Press record and try to capture the song and the moment as quickly as possible before it became a "thought out" record.
During the recording was where problem No.1 came in. With my studio being so small and the band having to be within a very close vicinity to each other every body's microphone(s) would be picking up each others sound.
So to get around this I had to mic everything very close and this would contradict the "moment in the room" sound. We ended up with a very "Dry" recording. The exact opposite of the room sound. Ultimately I would have had some microphones just dotted around the room to capture the room sound however as I said - in a room as small as my studio this would have just created technical buzz and bleeps that would actually go against the "moment in the room" and would present it as something that it was not.
This was to be a doccument as if you was there in the room not a doccumnet of anything you want.
So with the album recorded I had raw takes, real moments captured on tape. What I did not previously consider though was that I was re-connecting with a feeling that I now call 'Magic' and I knew that this was there in the room with us as we recorded -
How could I capture this?
We would be allowed to 'overdub' (record over the top) the live recordings, the moments and add the magic that we felt was in the room with us. Creating a real moment containing the hidden things that we don't always tune into in life - like spirits or love or destiny.
Robert Johnson is a delta blues player from the 1930's and is in my opinion the master.
However what struck me to my core was nothing musical. It was the sound recording, it was the legend of the recordings. When putting this music on I felt like I was listening in to a moment in time some Seventy years ago. On these recordings you can hear this, at the time unknown musician, putting his songs down on tape with one microphone, I felt like I was there with him in the room.
He was saying to me "This is not an art form Richard, this is a document of me in the 1930's recording my songs and you are now here with me whilst I play them".
It was spine chilling.
It was then that I fully realized what had been trying to come through me for about a decade - Music does not have to be presented in some 'Spectacular' way or polished or in a way that we perceive to be perfect. It can literally be a document of a time period and can be true unto itself - just on that level.
But I wanted to take this further, I wanted 'Where do we go from here? UP' to acknowledge itself as a document and not be ashamed or manipulated in any way that would take it away from it truly is. What I also wanted though was to serve the songs and to recognize what this time period actually was - because on a higher level the actual songs themselves are also 'Diary' songs - as in documents of moments of my life. So you could say "Why not just record them on one microphone?"
Well that in itself would be creating something that would come of as "artistic" over the fact of it being "true". I did not want an "Artistic" record but I wanted a true document. That would mean true on every possible level. A true document of the Vocals - Pianos - Drums - Guitars and Bass not only unto themselves but as a whole a true document of the whole band in that particular moment in this particular room.
True foremost to the place that these songs were coming from. Let the narrator tell his tale and let the moment in the room strengthen that.
They are not made up. They are moments of true magic that actually happened.
So with each instrument being given its own microphone(s) we would be ready to go.
Keep in mind that all of the songs are recorded live i.e everyone playing at the same time - just like you would see a live band, real and raw. To push the stakes even further as a producer I try to demand that we record no more than 5/6 takes of each song because usually anything further than that creates a more "thought out" piece which does not sound like an document of time but starts to sound more like a "Record".
"Record" as in what "Records" have evolved into since Robert Johnson - which is a manipulation of sound to either earn money or to please an audiophile ear very rare is it that you get to hear a real moment.
When I was writing 'Where do we go from here? UP' I was writing many songs a day and trying to catch just one each day in the net, then I would put that song down on my dictaphone and forget about it.
After having maybe 50 songs in a 30 day period I had no-idea what we really did have, I was just following the journey.
A couple of months later the band and I came in to record these songs. I would listen to a song from my dictaphone on the morning - once - then when the band came in I would play it to them - live on the piano - tell them the chords, give them maybe 10 - 15 minutes to read the lyrics and think to themselves and that was it. Press record and try to capture the song and the moment as quickly as possible before it became a "thought out" record.
During the recording was where problem No.1 came in. With my studio being so small and the band having to be within a very close vicinity to each other every body's microphone(s) would be picking up each others sound.
So to get around this I had to mic everything very close and this would contradict the "moment in the room" sound. We ended up with a very "Dry" recording. The exact opposite of the room sound. Ultimately I would have had some microphones just dotted around the room to capture the room sound however as I said - in a room as small as my studio this would have just created technical buzz and bleeps that would actually go against the "moment in the room" and would present it as something that it was not.
This was to be a doccument as if you was there in the room not a doccumnet of anything you want.
So with the album recorded I had raw takes, real moments captured on tape. What I did not previously consider though was that I was re-connecting with a feeling that I now call 'Magic' and I knew that this was there in the room with us as we recorded -
How could I capture this?
We would be allowed to 'overdub' (record over the top) the live recordings, the moments and add the magic that we felt was in the room with us. Creating a real moment containing the hidden things that we don't always tune into in life - like spirits or love or destiny.
Friday, 31 July 2009
Mixing the Album: The Second Half
Track Six: Pathways
Track Seven: Everlasting rose
Track Eight: Fire-lights
Track Nine: For you
Track Ten: New morning
Track Eleven: Dorothy's arrival
So... I had 3 days rest after my last post and re-entered the studio on Tuesday 7th July and from then until Tuesday 28th July I worked twenty hour days three weeks.
I have slept and ate very little and felt quite hallucinogenic because I also attempted juice fasts and removed meat from my diet completely because being "full" on food gets in my way of connecting to "IT".
That may sound a little over the top but it is true.
In those three weeks I have completed the album mix.
I have followed the album as a journey and the mix unfolded in front of me, It is very complex but I know things have happened as they as should have.
I have definitely not mixed this album, I have removed my opinion from it and allowed it to breathe as a piece unto it's own self - A very hard level to achieve as a producer is to resist the want to make things sound "better" and to rise up and treat everything with the respect that it deserves as a document of a period of time.
I have done the exact opposite of what anyobody else does I have NOT tried to make this sound GOOD. It sounds like what IT is.
It is sad that so may people confine music to "good" or "bad".
I worked hard and worked fast on purpose trying to make myself mix a track every two/three days because I believe that when you move fast you can bypass the brain and connect with magic better.
This has proven to be true.
Because of the speed and intensity of which I have worked there are a few loose ends to tie up, tiny little things like audible "hiss" coming in and out in some tracks which I will be working on because it actually gets in the way of the experience plus it's not true to what was there "in the moment" on the day it was recorded.
I did not document it here day by day because I felt that talking or even recognizing what I was attempting to do would have jeopardized the point so I put my head down and here I am.
A few days of tieing up ends in the studio and then I am onto the mastering stage.
I am ehausted a little insane but definatley on the right track, I can feel the train coming and I will be leaving with it.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Mixing the Album Track Five: Pretty lights
Something strange is going on. The fifth track on "Where do we go from here? UP" is "Pretty lights".
This is a point in which the albums shifts...
Magic becomes more apparent here as the band themselves have half merged with it and the line between magic and reality is becoming ever so slightly blurred.
I was betting on "Pretty lights" being a five dayer because I remembered in my mind that it had been left in quite a mess, with lot's of extra tracks overdubbed some being required, some not.
Sure enough that was how the track had been left except all of the eq and instrumentation problems that I though would occur did not happen and I pretty much sailed through it in about 12 hours. All day I felt really, really strange like abit out of my body and like something was with me all day.
It was pushing me and caused me to mix "Pretty lights" so quick and so without thought that I could not really hear what I was doing, It was very much the same as writing a song.
It was strange. But I just kept saying to myself "follow it, follow it" - something that has been sorely missing in my life over the last two years.
MY fight.
"Pretty lights" has surprised me and has told me more about "Where do we go from here? UP" than any other track that I have mixed thus far. Strange things are opening up as I progress and this track is far more important as a turning point than I had previously thought.
This is where the journey really starts to open out on more levels than just the life level.
I have blasted through these past four tracks and am doing many things to connect with myself through this record, the answers lie within it.
I have many barriers up and I am going to smash them down.
I have been working insane hours and have been averaging four hours sleep a night and the studio in this heat has been un-bearable.
So I am taking a few days to rest my ears and will be back with track six.
This is a point in which the albums shifts...
Magic becomes more apparent here as the band themselves have half merged with it and the line between magic and reality is becoming ever so slightly blurred.
I was betting on "Pretty lights" being a five dayer because I remembered in my mind that it had been left in quite a mess, with lot's of extra tracks overdubbed some being required, some not.
Sure enough that was how the track had been left except all of the eq and instrumentation problems that I though would occur did not happen and I pretty much sailed through it in about 12 hours. All day I felt really, really strange like abit out of my body and like something was with me all day.
It was pushing me and caused me to mix "Pretty lights" so quick and so without thought that I could not really hear what I was doing, It was very much the same as writing a song.
It was strange. But I just kept saying to myself "follow it, follow it" - something that has been sorely missing in my life over the last two years.
MY fight.
"Pretty lights" has surprised me and has told me more about "Where do we go from here? UP" than any other track that I have mixed thus far. Strange things are opening up as I progress and this track is far more important as a turning point than I had previously thought.
This is where the journey really starts to open out on more levels than just the life level.
I have blasted through these past four tracks and am doing many things to connect with myself through this record, the answers lie within it.
I have many barriers up and I am going to smash them down.
I have been working insane hours and have been averaging four hours sleep a night and the studio in this heat has been un-bearable.
So I am taking a few days to rest my ears and will be back with track six.
Friday, 3 July 2009
Mixing the Album Track Four: Run with the river
Took me a few days this one. I am completely changing as a producer, the way that I mix now compared to before this point is drastically different.
I used to mix a song by weaving it's different parts in and out to come together as a whole. In a way alot like Phil Spector or Brian Wilson, not that my music sounds like that, it's just mixing to a vision, like painting.
This has been pretty much impossible on "Where do we go from here? UP" because there is no "action packing", there is no "Big" loud moment. It is all very gentle. I could have mixed with a bang but it would have been wrong. It's all about being real.
If you was standing there in the room with the band when say "Run with the river" was recorded, then the vocals would not suddenly get louder at the end or in the chorus or something like that, it would only get louder acoustically within the range of the human voice. Not a big loud impact.
The minute that I mix anything louder for an "impact reason" it sticks out as being "fake" and not true and makes you feel like you are not listening to a real moment that has been recorded.
So my old style of mixing is out. The only time I will use the old style of weaving is when an instrument represents the magic that was in the room.
This maybe some sort of turning point for me as an artist. I feel like I am letting things be and letting the work have it's own dynamic shifts and pulses.
I used to mix a song by weaving it's different parts in and out to come together as a whole. In a way alot like Phil Spector or Brian Wilson, not that my music sounds like that, it's just mixing to a vision, like painting.
This has been pretty much impossible on "Where do we go from here? UP" because there is no "action packing", there is no "Big" loud moment. It is all very gentle. I could have mixed with a bang but it would have been wrong. It's all about being real.
If you was standing there in the room with the band when say "Run with the river" was recorded, then the vocals would not suddenly get louder at the end or in the chorus or something like that, it would only get louder acoustically within the range of the human voice. Not a big loud impact.
The minute that I mix anything louder for an "impact reason" it sticks out as being "fake" and not true and makes you feel like you are not listening to a real moment that has been recorded.
So my old style of mixing is out. The only time I will use the old style of weaving is when an instrument represents the magic that was in the room.
This maybe some sort of turning point for me as an artist. I feel like I am letting things be and letting the work have it's own dynamic shifts and pulses.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Mixing the Album Track Three: Petal of a rose
I apologize if my posts recently and for this period, seem a little vague as to what I am actually doing. This is because I am trying to work fast and re-connect in an emotional way to the pieces and just the thought of documenting seems to slow it and me down.
Yesterday I moved on to the third piece on "Where do we go from here? UP", "Petals of a rose".
"Petal of a rose" is a fragile moment about the light shining through the dark clouds about seeing tomorrow for the first time instead of the past. It is a moment that could have gone either way - this story either leads to the end of a person or a new beginning. "Petals of a rose" in many ways is the fine line that change can turn on. Change's "pin head".
Because it is a raw, raw moment emotionally, I wanted to reflect that in the recording so during the recording we pressed "record" and captured it in take one. I insisted that we do no more takes of it.
It sounds exactly like it should, raw and nervous, you can really feel the moment there in the room, there is nothing hiding just a PURE moment. You are part of it.
This is exactly the kind of "Recording" that I like. This is on my personal taste list. Mistakes, hell - YES! The beauty of music lies within it's imperfections NOT within it's "thought out" perfections. You can hear every morsel in the room.
So with this in mind, I thought that it only be right and respectful to the piece to try and do all of my production work fast - just like the take - I needed to be in that moment and not over think or over analyze anything.
It was imperative to the piece.
Yesterday I entered the studio at 4pm and left at 4am and "Petals of a rose" is mixed and finished.
It is a raw, emotional, warts and all recording and a moment that is very important to be that way within this story.
Yesterday I moved on to the third piece on "Where do we go from here? UP", "Petals of a rose".
"Petal of a rose" is a fragile moment about the light shining through the dark clouds about seeing tomorrow for the first time instead of the past. It is a moment that could have gone either way - this story either leads to the end of a person or a new beginning. "Petals of a rose" in many ways is the fine line that change can turn on. Change's "pin head".
Because it is a raw, raw moment emotionally, I wanted to reflect that in the recording so during the recording we pressed "record" and captured it in take one. I insisted that we do no more takes of it.
It sounds exactly like it should, raw and nervous, you can really feel the moment there in the room, there is nothing hiding just a PURE moment. You are part of it.
This is exactly the kind of "Recording" that I like. This is on my personal taste list. Mistakes, hell - YES! The beauty of music lies within it's imperfections NOT within it's "thought out" perfections. You can hear every morsel in the room.
So with this in mind, I thought that it only be right and respectful to the piece to try and do all of my production work fast - just like the take - I needed to be in that moment and not over think or over analyze anything.
It was imperative to the piece.
Yesterday I entered the studio at 4pm and left at 4am and "Petals of a rose" is mixed and finished.
It is a raw, emotional, warts and all recording and a moment that is very important to be that way within this story.
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