I started the day by writing a yesterday's Blog entry - I woke up very early, my mind racing. Too much paperwork on Sunday maybe? Then it was off to Fulham for my Alexander Lesson. Jeff was in Cardiff at the weekend for his birthday, and he arrived back after lunch, looking a bit the worse for wear, but holding it together (ie pretending he felt fine!) :-) We mixed 2 tracks today - and I was very pleased with both of them. Of course I will check them in the morning and probably make a couple of adjustments, but it was a very good Monday, and agreat start to the week.
I am having a weird problem with my system drive. Every so often the drive starts clanking and Logic freezes up. At first I thought it was a Logic Preference issue, but the problem re-occours even after creating new preferences. Disk Utility reports the SMART status as verified, and I rebuilt the Catalog with Disk Warrior. Now I am running the project Manager again to recreate that database. Perhaps the drive is going faulty? Anyway tomorow I will pick up another internal drive - perhaps I will have to reinstall - that will be a tedious interruption, just as we are getting on a creative mixing roll. I guess these things happen......
Daniel has lent us his rice cooker, and I bought a Saucepan and a small electric hob, so we make brown rice or pasta in the evening - we are also eating lots of garlic to stay healthy, but it does stink the place out sometimes. No real complaints yet.
Tomorrow Pilates and 2 more songs to be mixed.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Busy busy busy
I am sorry that the frequency of my posts has decreased so much - it is a very busy time towards end of the album, getting all the loose ends tied up and crafting the mixes. I will try to summarize the last week now.
I started the week by greeting my colleague and friend, engineer Jeff Knowler, who is joining the team to help me with the mixes. Jeff and I have already worked on the Battle album, a Clinic album and a Moi Caprice album this year, so Jeff is pretty tuned in to my vibe. We have set up a mix suite in he room next to mine, with tie lines throught to my room so we can check the mixes on all the monitor systems we have available (and I can eavesdrop!)
We have NS10s in both rooms of course and Genelec 1029s. I have Dynaudio BM15s in my room and Jeff is experimenting with PMC ALM1s in the Mix Suite. We both use Sennheiser HD600 cans - I have installed my Grace Design m902 in Jeff's room, and in my room I am using my Benchmark DAC-1 so we can definitely hear what we are doing :-) Jeff is using a large Pro Tools HD rig. I am not a PT expert, but I can interface very nicely with it when I use the Mackie Controller. I am using my expanded Logic Audio Rig with TC Powercore, Waves APA, UAD-1 and Focusrite Liquid Mix. I also have an SSL Duende but I am finding it impossible to get that working in addition to my other DSP cards (none of which I want to give up).
Of course it is not about the equipment - it is about the ears and the sensibilities of the people involved, about getting the right balances between the musical parts and the vocals, and serving the songs as best we can. I take my responsibilities seriously.
It is great to have 2 rooms working, and to have another set of ears across the mixes. Basically I set Jeff up with the parts for a song (all synths are bounced out in the Logic system using the "Export all tracks as Audio" command which makes files for Pro Tools and Audio Files for Logic, freeing up the DSP of my Logic system for mixing) and a rough mix then he gets things going - I go in occasionally and make adjustments. I leave him to get on with things and work on another mix in my room. At the end of the day I take the mixes from both rooms home and check them on my home system the next morning, then I make more adjustments accordingly. When I am happy we get James to load the mixes up to EMI's secure server so that Vince and Andy and Michael and Paul and Daniel can access them and make comments and criticisms. We have done 4 mixes so far, and look forward to doing another 10 this week.
Daniel is in the building too, and comes in to offer his opinions whenever he has a moment. He has known the band longer than any of us, and is simultaneously their biggest fan and our harshest critic, so that keeps us on our toes :-)
At the start of the week I still had quite a few vocals and backing vocals to finish with Andy, but by the end of the week (Friday) all vocals for the album were finished. A significant milestone reached, I gave Andy a big hug and Jeff, James and I celebrated later in the evening with a small beer.
I started the week by greeting my colleague and friend, engineer Jeff Knowler, who is joining the team to help me with the mixes. Jeff and I have already worked on the Battle album, a Clinic album and a Moi Caprice album this year, so Jeff is pretty tuned in to my vibe. We have set up a mix suite in he room next to mine, with tie lines throught to my room so we can check the mixes on all the monitor systems we have available (and I can eavesdrop!)
We have NS10s in both rooms of course and Genelec 1029s. I have Dynaudio BM15s in my room and Jeff is experimenting with PMC ALM1s in the Mix Suite. We both use Sennheiser HD600 cans - I have installed my Grace Design m902 in Jeff's room, and in my room I am using my Benchmark DAC-1 so we can definitely hear what we are doing :-) Jeff is using a large Pro Tools HD rig. I am not a PT expert, but I can interface very nicely with it when I use the Mackie Controller. I am using my expanded Logic Audio Rig with TC Powercore, Waves APA, UAD-1 and Focusrite Liquid Mix. I also have an SSL Duende but I am finding it impossible to get that working in addition to my other DSP cards (none of which I want to give up).
Of course it is not about the equipment - it is about the ears and the sensibilities of the people involved, about getting the right balances between the musical parts and the vocals, and serving the songs as best we can. I take my responsibilities seriously.
It is great to have 2 rooms working, and to have another set of ears across the mixes. Basically I set Jeff up with the parts for a song (all synths are bounced out in the Logic system using the "Export all tracks as Audio" command which makes files for Pro Tools and Audio Files for Logic, freeing up the DSP of my Logic system for mixing) and a rough mix then he gets things going - I go in occasionally and make adjustments. I leave him to get on with things and work on another mix in my room. At the end of the day I take the mixes from both rooms home and check them on my home system the next morning, then I make more adjustments accordingly. When I am happy we get James to load the mixes up to EMI's secure server so that Vince and Andy and Michael and Paul and Daniel can access them and make comments and criticisms. We have done 4 mixes so far, and look forward to doing another 10 this week.
Daniel is in the building too, and comes in to offer his opinions whenever he has a moment. He has known the band longer than any of us, and is simultaneously their biggest fan and our harshest critic, so that keeps us on our toes :-)
At the start of the week I still had quite a few vocals and backing vocals to finish with Andy, but by the end of the week (Friday) all vocals for the album were finished. A significant milestone reached, I gave Andy a big hug and Jeff, James and I celebrated later in the evening with a small beer.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
I had a puncture on my way to the studio today - I called Cycle Surgery and Mario said to bring it straight in, and he would fix it. Great Store. On the way back to the studio I went to Fresh and Wild and picked up lunch for James & I. What a pity they have stopped doing the "lunch special".. That was a great deal! Might have to shop elsewhere for lunch now. Planet Organic perhaps?. I passed a Modernist Masterpiece on the way back to the studio:
Also some geese and a swan
I found a nice feature in Logic - when I "Export all tracks as audio", the track names come over (I don't think this used to be the case). This means I can bounce all tracks very quickly and then free up all my computer DSP for lovely mixing plugins. We have worked very hard all week and James and I both are recovering from (his!) cold, so we had a shorter day and stopped work at 19:00.
View from Studio:
Sunday is a day off.
Also some geese and a swan
I found a nice feature in Logic - when I "Export all tracks as audio", the track names come over (I don't think this used to be the case). This means I can bounce all tracks very quickly and then free up all my computer DSP for lovely mixing plugins. We have worked very hard all week and James and I both are recovering from (his!) cold, so we had a shorter day and stopped work at 19:00.
View from Studio:
Sunday is a day off.
zucchini bread recipe
Somebody asked for the recipe - I asked Vince's wife and she sent me this:
Flaxseed zucchini bread
2 cups shredded unpeeled zucchini
3 cups flour(I use 1/2 wheat flour)
6 tbsp milled flaxseeds (If using whole flaxseeds, soak in warm water for ten minutes before adding or grind them in a coffee bean grinder)
1-3/4 cups sugar (I use brown sugar)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
1 cup raisins
1/3 cup applesauce
3 eggs( I substitute with egg whites)
1/3 cup olive oil
4 tbsp water
In large bowl stir together flour, milled flaxseed, sugar, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, baking soda, nuts and raisins. Make a well in center of mixture.
In another bowl beat eggs, oil and water, stir in zucchini and applesauce. Pour over flour mixture and stir until dry ingredients are moistened. Divide the batter evenly between two greased 1 lb. loaf pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until pick inserted in middle of loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, remove and cool completely. Try it with a dab of peanut butter or cream cheese. Yummy!
Makes 2 loaves, 24 servings.
Flaxseed zucchini bread
2 cups shredded unpeeled zucchini
3 cups flour(I use 1/2 wheat flour)
6 tbsp milled flaxseeds (If using whole flaxseeds, soak in warm water for ten minutes before adding or grind them in a coffee bean grinder)
1-3/4 cups sugar (I use brown sugar)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
1 cup raisins
1/3 cup applesauce
3 eggs( I substitute with egg whites)
1/3 cup olive oil
4 tbsp water
In large bowl stir together flour, milled flaxseed, sugar, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, baking soda, nuts and raisins. Make a well in center of mixture.
In another bowl beat eggs, oil and water, stir in zucchini and applesauce. Pour over flour mixture and stir until dry ingredients are moistened. Divide the batter evenly between two greased 1 lb. loaf pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until pick inserted in middle of loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, remove and cool completely. Try it with a dab of peanut butter or cream cheese. Yummy!
Makes 2 loaves, 24 servings.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Andy tells us what he's been up to
Andy came to the studio today and did some more excellent backing vocals. We tried the "problem" lead vocal again, and still it's not really doing it for us. It just never seems as good as it should be (unlike the other songs!). O well - there's always one! I was feeling a bit under the weather (I've got a bit of a cold - in fact I am enjoying a hot toddy right now) and I forget to save all the backing vocals for one song. Then the machine crashed. oops. Obviously the vocals were all on the hard drive, and because had been using "punch on the fly" and always starting from a bar it was a relatively simple matter to put them together again. Irritating all the same. We all make mistakes. Luckily I got away with this one.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
First Proper day at Mute
After my Alexander Lesson I cycled up through Hyde Park and Notting Hill to the Mute building, where I met James, our assistant for the session.
We did a bit more plugging up (I wanted to get my small Genelec monitors working) and pretty soon Daniel arrived for our meeting.
Our plan is to listen to all of the tracks in some detail over the next couple of days, and we made a really good start. One of the songs Daniel felt was still very busy, so we threw around a few ideas and were able to enhance it quite nicely - I'm sure Andy and Vince will like it too. Other songs we simply discussed mix ideas and approaches or made minor "tweaks" . I also started showing James how I want to get all the soft synths recorded, which is something we are going to do on a track by track basis.
Polly Scattergood is in Studio 1 with Simon FT and Kevin - I heard a little of what they are doing and it sounded GREAT.
Daniel and I had a great Lunch and Dinner from Fresh and Wild
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