Ones and Zeros: 25 CDs later

25 CDs later

July 05, 2003

So the recording project is pretty much done. Liz came over and we burned 24 CDs. I keep listening to the one I made for me and I keep wanting to tweak it.

I want to go into School House Rock and re-normalize each section of the medley. I want to get the voices up on the speaking parts without getting the electrical hum. I want to fix the gap in Helplessly Hoping. I want the effen' tape not to have that clipping on it.

Things I learned:

I'd really enjoy having a MOTU 828 mkII, especially if we get a PowerMac G5 And a compressor. And a little reverb unit...
I guess that means it's pretty clear I still like recording. :)
Nothing I do after I should have gone to bed is ever any good. It would have been better if I'd gone to bed and hit it fresh in the morning.
Test everything.
Have a backup plan for everything you test.
Make the band take breaks. Even if I have to make up technical reasons. Like "I have to go to the little engineer's room."
If I like the song after listening to it 15 times in 3 days, it's probably pretty good.
SoundEdit 16 still works for editing, although in Classic mode. Not bad for an 8 year old app that came out when System 7 was the standard and 66MHz was the processor speed. It's a lot faster now.
If I don't dislike the song as much as I did at first after listening to it 15 times in 3 days, I'm probably getting numb.
It would have been better to stay in 8 tracks longer, but for a board tape, it's pretty good.
It always pays to be nice to the guy who is running the place, even if he's not going to do what I want.
Just because I could make Mikey say "kill them" like Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? doesn't mean I should...
Contrary to conventional wisdom, laughter is not "the best medicine" when the disease is "uneven levels".
It's amazing how both the 4 hour practice session and the two hour show fit were both between 75 and 80 minutes, the perfect length for a CD.
While it may take the CD Burner mechanism less than 2 minutes to burn 75 minutes of music, the process takes a few more than that. Still, it took more time to print covers for the CD cases.
Cats like to lay on tracking sheets. Yes, that's a copy of The Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook under Lionors.
Who said this wasn't a blog about my cats?

.:Posted by Michael on July 5, 2003 12:37 AM:.

Dude, the CDs ROCK. Those of us around on Wednesday listened to them. I'm really impressed with the quality of the rehearsal recording.

And I'd love to hear myself Judge Doom-ified. ;)

.:Posted by Judge Doom ( total) on July 7, 2003 9:31 AM:.

HEY - Liz just sent mail telling us that the CDs were ready and I wanted to say a *huge thank you* for everything. I know you put in a ton of time. I'm a little scared to hear my personal version, but maybe if I keep it in my car, no one will mistake it for a CD they actually want to hear. Eek! (Interjections...they're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point, or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong.)

.:Posted by Mary Kay ( total) on July 7, 2003 9:32 AM:.

Just another thank-you for all your hard work on these recordings. From the folks who have already listened, I have heard nothing but positive feedback about how useful these CDs will be toward improving our sound. Even the people who have always been afraid to listen to themselves have been pleasantly surprised! (Hey, there's hope, MK!) :)

I am also convinced that we need to record the rest of the next Lager CD in your format (8 mics in a circle). It was the best, most natural setting we have tried so far, and I think it will only make the mixing easier.

Thanks!!

.:Posted by elizabeth ( total) on July 7, 2003 10:41 AM:.

I would also like to thank you for all the time and hard work you donated to this project. The sound is great, but the sound engineer is better.

Additionally, I'd like to give a HUGE thank you to Joe for loaning us the equipment that made this possible. If he has a blog, let me know and I'll comment there more directly.

.:Posted by Angelo ( total) on July 7, 2003 10:47 AM:.

Cool! It's a Lager invasion of my comments section. Hello, all.

Joe doesn't have a blog, but his band The Flying Fish Sailors has a web board. They're in the studio, which is Joe's spare room. He's recording on serious gear...

I still have the complete collection of Lager gear (8 unbalanced quarter-inch to RCA cables, each 3 feet long) and your DTRS tapes.

.:Posted by Michael Croft ( total) on July 7, 2003 11:17 AM:.

Want bootlegs.

.:Posted by Greg Morrow ( total) on July 7, 2003 11:41 AM:.

Sorry, Greg. This is a blog about my cats.

.:Posted by Michael Croft ( total) on July 7, 2003 11:56 AM:.

Mrrow.

(Sorry about leaving the "gear" and tapes! I'll pick them up some time soon...)

.:Posted by elizabeth ( total) on July 7, 2003 12:01 PM:.

Michael, you rock!

Lagers, I'm jealous.

8 mics in a circle, eh? If I recall correctly, we used 7 mics in a circle for Aftermatch and decided to switch on Strange Charm because having each individual mic'd lost us the blend one should hear when we're singing together. Sometime I'd enjoy sitting down with you, listening to what you just recorded and both of the previous albums and talking about the differences.

.:Posted by Andy ( total) on July 7, 2003 11:25 PM:.

Thanks for the all the work with us Lagers, Michael. I received my CDs (look, Laurie, no apostrophe!) just before leaving for a desert vacation in NM, and my iPod is now filled with Practice makes Perfekt cuts. If you can make a bunch of tired voices blend that well on a rough cut practice bootleg sort of thing, man, the second half of the new album will be outstanding. Looking forward to working with you again in the future. Thanks for the engineer's breaks. Radio Shack is our friend. Is it a good or bad thing that the product of a full concert and 4 hours of practice recording fits onto one CD? PowerMac G5...cooooooooooooool. Cats do love music, the printed out kind, as my Max will attest. Especially if they can spread it all out and then spread themselves out all over it. Thanks again.

.:Posted by Ed ( total) on July 9, 2003 3:11 PM:.

Now if I can just find time to listen to the copies of Mike's that I borrowed from him... I've heard nothing but great things about them though - and your hard work is evident! Mad props to you - and I'll have more after I hear them, I'm sure!

.:Posted by Christine ( total) on July 18, 2003 2:40 PM:.