Kicked Off 12 More Weeks of Carnegie

I had a great class last night. I am looking forward to 12 more week of my own personal growth.

The Dale Carnegie class is a wonderful experience. I recommend everyone take the class. If you have taken it, i think you should go through it again as a Graduate Assistant. You get even more out the class when you are part of the instructional team.

Long, Tough Night in the Studio

Well, Last night i was the one on the playing side of recording. It stated out great. But i fell apart on the last song. It was one of those times when nothing worked. I could not hear well enough to catch my cues. After many takes on one section and listening to the play back, it was just too muddy. So we decided to scrap the whole rhythm pattern. It sounds good live but not on tape. We worked up a new part that we think will work better with the drums and bass. I will try to get it on tape later this week. Then, we will be down to Lead Guitar and vocals.

Rhythm & Slide

I am taking a break from engineering our album and moving to the artist chair. I get to play rhythm guitar on all the songs and slide guitar on one or two. It's fun to engineer but I am looking forward to relaxing an playing for a couple of nights. I';; let John be the engineer. I'll still do the mixing and editing. He'll be directing me so for me, that's cool!

Everything has gone great so far. We are having a good time playing, arranging, and recording. It's work. But it's fun.

Bass is Done

We have the bass tracked now. Last night, we were able to record all the bass parts. Tim was incredible. After playing these song together for a year, we have tightened them up pretty good. So the recording is going fast.

I will take the weekend to mix the drums and bass. That will give us a good foundation for the rhythm, lead, and vocals.

It beats working for a living.

IndieHeaven

We are now on the IndieHeaven.com web site. We are looking forward to selling our EP through the site as well as MP3 downloads.

Drums are Done

Garret and I finished recording drums last night. I put the lipstick on them to get ready for the next steps in the process.

Tonight, Tim will be laying down Bass. And I may get a few rhythm tracks down.

Recording Drum Tracks

I love playing and recording with a live drummer. Drum Machines are so perfect even when you try add some "soul" to them. I just can't get the same feel with a box as i can with a body.

Last night, we spent hours recording drums on three songs. With my recording rig, it requires some creative patching to get 8 channels. But, I can do it. The computer handles it well. We track as much as we can separately - Kick, Snare, & Toms 1-4. Then, I use two SM58s to get the Hi-Hat and Cymbals. It works out great. I have almost total control.

With Cubase, I have a great interface for the recording, editing, and tone tweaking. It's hard to remember back to the 8 track, analog days. I can't remember how I did all of this back then. It's soooo easy now. I can think more about the art of the sound than the mechanics of it.

But what made it really enjoyable was having Garret and John in the studio. It's fun to be in a band. It's not my band. It's A band I am a part of. We are all working together and having fun.

The first EP may be ready Mid-July. Keep watching the band site.

Unicode and my Simple MInd

I have been trying to convert one of my pet applications from ASCII to Unicode. So it's real simple, Set the "Unicode Flag" and compile. Then you just sit back and watch the errors scroll by. To say one compile flag could be a huge problem is an understatement. It is a drastic change in the way the compiler functions. It changes the size of all "char" based variables.

I thought English was hard. I was just plain wrong! English, Southern English, ain't so bad after all.

Limit, Compress, EQ, . . (Repeat as Necessary)

I spent a lot of time over the weekend in the studio. I was just working on the scratch tracks. But, those tracks are the ones we will practice to and use as the basis of the actual tracking. So, those are important. I want them to sound as good as possible because I will be listening to them a lot.

We do very little in the recording software. We use it to mix - a little reverb on the vocals, some compressor on the bass and drums, and then level everything.

It's a great way to spend a few hours with friends.

Message from Govenor's School

Here is a profound message my son sent to his mother on her birthday. (BTW - Happy Birthday Beautiful)

Class is fine, Having Fun

And that is the exact quote. No more, no less, I guess everything is fine and he is having fun.

Quote of the Day

This was sent to me by my wife today.

In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.

-- Johann von Neumann

Governor's School

Well, it was an eventful weekend. I spent all day Saturday working on my shop, tractor, and yard. It was hot.

Then Sunday was a sort of milestone. We took Hunter to the Governor's School at Columbus. He will spend three weeks studying fluid dynamics and aerospace engineering. It will be a great experience for him.

I am proud of both my son's academic achievements. I made the top half of the class possible. They are in the top percentiles. They got their intelligence from their mother.