April 29, 2016 - 12:19am I'm watching Age Of Ice... it is awful... and long... and I have no idea wtf is going on. Maybe I should've watched it with the sound up and been paying attention (doing emails... and playing Hearthstone)... but usually I can follow along. This is just like... a bunch of stuff happens... and it's like the main character wrote and directed the movie... one of those "heroes". ... and he can't grow a beard. I think they're supposed to be stranded for weeks or months... but if you're going to make a movie about survival... and you're going to cast a male lead... you gotta cast someone who can grow a beard... beards = survival. + time. ... just sayin'. Today was what I'd consider the day of truth. This week as been dubbed "Hell Week", but I've told the guys several times, let's just keep our heads down, work as much as we can, then have a sit down early Thursday to figure out where we are, what big pieces still need to go in the bucket, what's urgent, and what can wait. Kev has most of his lead vocals in, but we're still missing a lot of guitar leads which we wanted to try and do together in the room. ... and there was still an entire song we needed to do. ... it's not as bad as it seems though... it's pretty common for a tune to get put off to the side for one reason or another... this was mainly because we weren't hearing the typical drum kit set up on it. We dug in finishing the guitars from the day before, then started working on "Aaron's Song". I'm calling it that because that's what it was originally tilted in the demos. ... side note: I've said it before but just a reminder. There's no excuse for everyone to not be submitting song ideas for their band these days. Aaron joked about the rig he was using to record the original demo. No matter how crap you think it is... it's still a way to get an idea down and the internet allows you to send it anywhere in the world... well... anywhere they have internet... and/or it isn't banned. Aaron had an idea how how he wanted it to sound so I thought it was important to make sure he had a large part in steering the ship from port. ... no typical drums. ... got it. We referenced a few songs and Alex had some great ideas in getting those drum sounds... one of which was setting up 3 "tom" stations in the live room and bangin' it out. ... too many jokes. ... it was fun though... very Blue Man Group-ish. ... I should probably add, while most of Aaron's Song is coming together, I'm off to the side trying to dig out synth and string parts from the original demo. We'd made some arrangement changes, so, in PrO tOoLs it's a bit of a headache editing MIDI. It should be simple... but it isn't... and then add on top of that, the... "organizational habits" of the typical band demo. You're lucky if half the tracks are labeled, any markers are in place for the arrangement.. and it's properly on a grid... without haphazard edits/punches. There's always plug-ins all over the place though. I love seeing compressor plug-ins on band demos... with setting that are either a) presets that aren't doing anything or b) settings that are doing more harm than good. Compressors are not EQ's (although can arguably used as EQ's...)... you can't just run in there twistin' knobs! If you want to use a compressor "like and EQ", just use a limiter. Smash it until it stops moving, then adjust the fader. Done! Anyway... I spent a around 2.5 hrs digging what was basically 3 tracks. Editing them to fit the new arrangement... and then adjusting the MIDI... so it made sense... even when I was done, I'd probably still finesse the sounds and performances a bit once it's in the actual master session. ... fun times. ... one more thing on that topic... just a reminder that bands sometimes don't see how long that kinda production work can take. Whether a producer is doing it or someone else in the band... it can be a thankless job. Easy math, if it was a full record's worth... 2.5 X 10 songs... that can be a couple days of exporting stuff... again... fun times. ... tacos for lunch... no time today for NBA JAM. ... oh yeah... the one man camera crew showed up today! I was curious how Mike (Hough - filmed the last Parabelle DVD at Pawnshop, 2013 I think) would affect the vibe... sometimes (*cough*often*cough*) people change when the camera is on... it was pretty normal though. Some jokes were pulled from the script, but we got most of that out of our system before hand. I stayed off to the side (again, editing the MIDI) but it was kinda interesting being a fly on the wall for some discussions, mean while there's another fly on the wall filming it. (... double fly on the wall!) ... I'm curious how Hough will portray me in the DVD. He won't have a ton of footage so my guess is he'll just kill me off... or make me the hero! ... or both... or neither... probably neither. I'm a season 2 character and we're on season 6 I think. ... maybe he'll blow me up in After Effects.... We ended the day trying some guitar leads. ... I'm sure Alex loves to hear the.... experimentation of ideas (possibly mistaken for unpreparedness), but it's how some of our (I can say that now) best work gets done. We're filling gaps at this point on the tunes and Parabelle isn't the kinda band that gets in a rehearsal space and writes the songs, plays them for 4-6 months, then goes into the studio. A lot is refined (and possibly written) in the studio... and it's nice to throw ideas around in an environment we can actually hear it. When it's good, it fits... when it's not good, it doesn't. We ended up trying to put a part over a bridge... tried some ideas, Kev suggested a slide guitar part... first try wasn't great but it already sounded like it was going to fit... sounded "right". ... had another meeting around 8:30pm and put a plan together for tomorrow. Last day of Hell Week. Vocals and guitars... guitars and vocals. We'll get done what we need... rollin' stop is what I aim for. Went to Chicken Express for dinner. I'm going to miss the food around here but I miss my kitchen more. I just started watching "AE: Apocalypse Earth"... it's awful. What's the deal with CGI looking like a high school project??? There are aliens. I'm sure they tried hard... but I wish I could've been a fly on the wall the first time people saw the CGI ... do the best with what you have to work with sometimes... most of the time... that's not necessarily a bad thing. - Mike :-) .. P.S. I totally forgot about mberry. If you don't know what it is... look it up.
... to be continued. P.P.S Too tired to re-read all this again... probably more mistakes than usual... way she goes! lol. P.P.P.S. I just noticed the day/date is wrong on the link... but I need to sleep... and it's a pain to change that. Weebly is Weebly... so I'll learn to live with it.
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Mike Langford - Official BlogBeing on both sides of the glass, I get the chance to wear many hats in the music industry. This is a place to share my thoughts, views, predictions, rants, stories and news! Categories
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