Thursday, July 05, 2007

I've realized...

that I spend a lot of the time I'm not at work sitting around in my underwear. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not yet.

-ed

Sunday, June 17, 2007

FYI...

Because I've run into people calling me this week during work, I'm going to list my work schedule on here every week, in a fit of narcisissm, since I believe everyone wants to know this:

Week of June 18th-24th
  • Monday: 2:40-11pm
  • Tuesday: 1-11pm
  • Wednesday: 2:40-11pm
  • Thursday: OFF
  • Friday: 2:40-11pm
  • Saturday: 2:40-11pm
  • Sunday: OFF

-ed

Thursday, June 14, 2007

There is nothing better...

...than the last minute and a half or so of "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who. Listen and understand.

-ed

Monday, May 21, 2007

pull a curtain on the hurtin'

just a terrible lyric I heard at work today.

-ed

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Hmmm...

So, in my master mixing class today, I realized that while this entire class is about professional mixing techniques and creating slick, wonderful sounding mixes, many, many of the songs that I love are mixed terribly. Take, for instance, "Sweet-Lovin' Man" by the Magnetic Fields. Everything has too much reverb, things are swimming around in there, it's muddy sounding, no definition between instruments. But it's unbelieveably beautiful.

The teacher kept talking today about drum replacement, which shows the sad state of recording, today, but also hit a nerve with me. His class last semester mixed the song that I tracked with a group in Studio A, and to see what he thought about the job I did with it, I brought it in. Now, I know that when we mixed it we had too much OH in the mix, and the vocal got lost in the 3rd section. However, he pointed out that when he and his other class mixed this, the decided to replace the snare sound on the 3rd section with a snare sound from earlier in the song, due to Dustin's decision to detach the snares to get a higher-tom sound during a U2-style breakdown.

This is where the teacher and I will have ideological differences, and I wish I had Caleb in the class to help me out with this, but to me, it's one thing to replace a bad sounding snare (which we did not have, thank you). It's entirely another thing to alter what the musician was going for. Dustin obviously wanted to have that detached snare sound in that part, and by replacing it, we have compromised the integrity of the piece. I suppose I fall into the steve albini view of capturing a performance, and not fucking it over with a fine-tooth comb until it sounds like a damned Steely Dan record from the 80's.

Whatever. grrr.

-ed

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Nicole Kidman Scares the Shit Out of Me...

I'm at work, and I'm watching the Oscars, for the same logic that I watched the Grammys while a work: someone turned it on and I've been to lazy to turn it off. Anyways, Nicole Kidman just walked about with that new James Bond guy, and she looks like a scarecrow in a red dress. Keith Urban must be on some crazy-ass drugs. Wait, the girl who's with the guy who just won the award is even skinner and scarier than Nicole Kidman. Didn't think that was possible. Nicole looks absolutely fat next to her.

Oh, and whatever Matt is recording in the post room, the vocals are terrible and flat. Someone should tell them. But eh, maybe not me.

-ed

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Drrr...

My room is a mess of books and papers. I used to take some pride in keeping it clean, but I don't even feel the urge to do that anymore. This thesis is getting the best of me. I don't even like being in my room anymore because I feel like I should be working on it all the time. All these books surrounding me just don't help the anxiety. And the research, while going, isn't going in the direction I wanted it to, so I'm going to have to alter my thesis a bit, back to what I wanted it to be in the beginning. Thank you Honors Fucking Council for making this harder than it needs to be.

Well...It's only Feb 21st. I'm giving myself until March 15th to have the first drafts done. I think I can do it. Just not tonight. Probably not tomorrow night either. Friday? Yes. Saturday? Yes. Sunday? Yes. But tonight. No. I did a page this morning, that's as much as I can muster. I feel like I should be working on it, but nothing really makes me want to do it. If this paper was about mastering techniques for vinyl, I think I would be all about that. In fact, that's what I want to do when I graduate. Luckily, AES is touring URP tomorrow, so I'm hoping I can make some contacts that will hopefully lead to a job. Who knows. Enough of this.

-ed

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Amazing

So, Lanzanator, the rapper that I am managing for the Urban Showcase, actually made the live auditions. I can honestly say I was very surprised by this. Not that he is bad, in fact he's quite funny and calls himself part of the "nerd-core" scene, which basically means he's white and he raps about robots and video games. But Belmont Showcases are usually the home to more polished acts, with originality usually losing out to musicianship and percieved quality (i.e. that terrible band Lorien who made the rock showcase for 2 years. I believe they have only made it due to the fact that their insular christian rock/emo scene is thought to actually be of some artistic worth. Which it is not. It's derivative and weak.)

So for David to even make the auditions is quite amazing. Before I was wary of actually making it into the showcase, but now I'm hoping that it happens, because it would be awesome, and people wouldn't know what to do with it. He would be competing against lame-ass R&B acts, which are slick and polished, and are not urban at all, lol. In fact, neither is David. I doubt anyone in this showcase can claim they are Urban. I wouldn't be surprised if they are all white, too. oh well, c'est la vie.

-ed

Sunday, January 14, 2007

So the semester begins...

...and I still haven't done enough work on my thesis. I've sent out e-mails, I'm just waiting for the inevitable lack of responses. I have the material I'm working on, so I mean, that's a plus.

Speaking of that, it's giving me more trouble than I would have wanted. Obviously, I'm a novice at mastering, and this is really only my fourth album, working on equipment that is not in the ideal set up for mastering. Sooo, I really shouldn't be down on myself for not quite excelling with this one, but it is a bit disheartning when I've done so well before. Really, I think I just need to work on understanding the nuances of Peak a bit more. This whole "no click" thing has gotten me a bit confused, and though I think I've figured it out, there has to be a better way to control a crossfade, or at least make it sound more transparent, as this sort of thing is done all the time on loops. Hmmm. Anyways, I'm meeting with Michael in the morning to discuss a few things, I'm pissed that it's taken so long, mostly because this delays the CD release, but they do need to fix those distortions, and that is something that is not my fault. hokay.

BTW, here's a new recording that could turn into something of a collaboration between the Disco Arts and Crafts Collective and Lanzanator.

http://rapidshare.com/files/11759984/___.m4a.html

-ed