Pretty darn soon now
I know I've been saying this in the blog for months, but...
We're REALLY REALLY close this time!
Last night Randy & I mixed in all the elements I'd been cooking at my studio for the past 10 months into Pretty Soon Now. When we recorded the basic track last year it was very inspiring and I spent a lot of time listening to the rough mix and coming up with ideas... some nuts, some inspired... but they were all there. Randy was very positive about what I'd recorded and we have a blast bringing the elements in, chopping some pieces off, bring some up in the mix... lots of guitars, various keyboards, and a ton of vocals. Some sections of the song completely changed course (hopefully for the better)... by the end of a long night we had a great mix going.
Somehow this song, which has been sitting on the horizon like a giant monster waiting to stomp a coastal town, has been incredibly easy to mix. We had one other one on the album - it took just a couple of quick session to get everything happening. Pretty Soon Now has the best drum sound on the album, the instruments all sound clean and clear, the vocals all blend, the bass is grooving along... it's such a relief when that happens. Other songs fight against mixing and you really have to push and squeeze to get everything audible. This one is completely flowing together.
Folks have asked what it's like in the studio... typically it's moments of great inspiration separated by vast expanses of tedium. Luckily Randy is great in the studio so those good moments happen a lot more frequently. But during the tedium I usually doodle... and sketch... I've posted some things in the past - here's some samples from the past couple sessions:
The back of Randy's head gets sketched a lot. I think I know every nook and cranny by now. Jim Sux is accurate. Ha ha!
Yes, I have a ukulele fetish. "Nudulele Reclining"?
Nothing says ROCK like vines and musical staff. This is the solo for the second half of the bridge... and look, it's the 16 voice Pretty Soon Now Choir!
So - we couldn't get the lead vocal done because the damn stupid bar downstairs started cranking up the "woo woo" music. That will have to wait another day. Besides, I need a couple days to do a final tweak on the lyrics. We're going to probably add a little violin, clarinet and some brass - hopefully we can get this all wrapped up in one session. And then we'll be done! Done, I tells ya! DONE!
Something about going to band-related activities activates the accident magnet in my car... lately every time I've left the house my car leads me directly to a major traffic snarl due to some horrible car flipping wreck. A few weeks ago there was a horrible one on the 275 bridge over the muddy Ohio River. Last night three cars had flipped and rolled and tangled up at the foot of the 471 bridge over the same murky river. Maybe it's bridges, not my car.
It's always very disconcerting slowly drifting by wrecks. Fear hangs in the air, angry cops crowd around the guilty driver while other nervous groups of drivers huddle for protection. Everyone slows and stares, breathing easy that it wasn't them. Moments like this always make me think ponder my own mortality. What would happen if I was involved in that wreck? What would my kids do? My wife? My dogs? Would the album get finished and released without me? At least I recorded that crappy scratch vocal - the album could be released, with apologies, with that vocal on it...
On the way home from the session I listened to the latest mix and pondered the work accomplished and what remained undone. I usually take some less popular streets through downtown Cincinnati to get to Pete Rose Way (ugh) that surprisingly takes me all the way along the river to my house. (It's when I don't take this route that I see wrecks.) Driving down the dim streets, with bright lights in the distance, I suddenly realized that a white trailer was sticking out several feet into the street. I swerved and narrowly missed a collision. It had no reflectors, no cones, and it looked like it had been there a while. If I hadn't seen it it would've flattened the right side of my car and surely sent me to the hospital, or worse.
I wonder if folks driving by would've looked at my crushed carcass of a car and absorbed the cautionary example. Or if they would've seen it as another absent-minded idiot on the road, a thinning of the herd.
I would like to think that they would remember to live their life to the fullest, because for all they know the end could be coming... pretty soon now.
Dave
We're REALLY REALLY close this time!
Last night Randy & I mixed in all the elements I'd been cooking at my studio for the past 10 months into Pretty Soon Now. When we recorded the basic track last year it was very inspiring and I spent a lot of time listening to the rough mix and coming up with ideas... some nuts, some inspired... but they were all there. Randy was very positive about what I'd recorded and we have a blast bringing the elements in, chopping some pieces off, bring some up in the mix... lots of guitars, various keyboards, and a ton of vocals. Some sections of the song completely changed course (hopefully for the better)... by the end of a long night we had a great mix going.
Somehow this song, which has been sitting on the horizon like a giant monster waiting to stomp a coastal town, has been incredibly easy to mix. We had one other one on the album - it took just a couple of quick session to get everything happening. Pretty Soon Now has the best drum sound on the album, the instruments all sound clean and clear, the vocals all blend, the bass is grooving along... it's such a relief when that happens. Other songs fight against mixing and you really have to push and squeeze to get everything audible. This one is completely flowing together.
Folks have asked what it's like in the studio... typically it's moments of great inspiration separated by vast expanses of tedium. Luckily Randy is great in the studio so those good moments happen a lot more frequently. But during the tedium I usually doodle... and sketch... I've posted some things in the past - here's some samples from the past couple sessions:
The back of Randy's head gets sketched a lot. I think I know every nook and cranny by now. Jim Sux is accurate. Ha ha!
Yes, I have a ukulele fetish. "Nudulele Reclining"?
Nothing says ROCK like vines and musical staff. This is the solo for the second half of the bridge... and look, it's the 16 voice Pretty Soon Now Choir!
So - we couldn't get the lead vocal done because the damn stupid bar downstairs started cranking up the "woo woo" music. That will have to wait another day. Besides, I need a couple days to do a final tweak on the lyrics. We're going to probably add a little violin, clarinet and some brass - hopefully we can get this all wrapped up in one session. And then we'll be done! Done, I tells ya! DONE!
Something about going to band-related activities activates the accident magnet in my car... lately every time I've left the house my car leads me directly to a major traffic snarl due to some horrible car flipping wreck. A few weeks ago there was a horrible one on the 275 bridge over the muddy Ohio River. Last night three cars had flipped and rolled and tangled up at the foot of the 471 bridge over the same murky river. Maybe it's bridges, not my car.
It's always very disconcerting slowly drifting by wrecks. Fear hangs in the air, angry cops crowd around the guilty driver while other nervous groups of drivers huddle for protection. Everyone slows and stares, breathing easy that it wasn't them. Moments like this always make me think ponder my own mortality. What would happen if I was involved in that wreck? What would my kids do? My wife? My dogs? Would the album get finished and released without me? At least I recorded that crappy scratch vocal - the album could be released, with apologies, with that vocal on it...
On the way home from the session I listened to the latest mix and pondered the work accomplished and what remained undone. I usually take some less popular streets through downtown Cincinnati to get to Pete Rose Way (ugh) that surprisingly takes me all the way along the river to my house. (It's when I don't take this route that I see wrecks.) Driving down the dim streets, with bright lights in the distance, I suddenly realized that a white trailer was sticking out several feet into the street. I swerved and narrowly missed a collision. It had no reflectors, no cones, and it looked like it had been there a while. If I hadn't seen it it would've flattened the right side of my car and surely sent me to the hospital, or worse.
I wonder if folks driving by would've looked at my crushed carcass of a car and absorbed the cautionary example. Or if they would've seen it as another absent-minded idiot on the road, a thinning of the herd.
I would like to think that they would remember to live their life to the fullest, because for all they know the end could be coming... pretty soon now.
Dave
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