blather: bday on delay +mastering master

[arrow00]

my birthday round up report is on hold because I'm still hip deep in the nightmare landscape of music CD wrangling. but I am grateful to all of you, my friends online, who made up for the lack of any particular festiveness on the day in question. I have to garnish? gather? heap praise on the kind people who made me such lovely presents, and will do so tomorrow. hopefully. but right now my life is fubared beyond belief.

ahem. What I Have Learned In the Past Month

(I already knew this.)

if you want something done right, you have to kick everyone in the head and then run away and do it yourself. I have finally done so.



see, it turns out $10,000 software in the wrong hands just makes little clicks and bobbles and craptastic sequencing errors on what was otherwise a very serviceable, if low-fidelity, quirky little folk-pop album.

otoh, cheap-ass, comes-with-your-Apple-computer software apparently can fix the goddamned problem if you just yank the files away from the very well-meaning but not particularly attentive mastering "master" and just fucking DO IT YOURSELF. which is what I did. using Garage Band, no less (somewhere Steve Jobs is masturbating) instead of the $10,000 I kid you not Sonic Blade software/hardware that put all the dopey artifacts in.

And, to make matters completely unacceptable, the song that got fucked up the most is a) one of my favorite tracks b) completely a cappella so you can't even PRETEND it's just someone brushing their pick against the mic stand or something.

No. Unacceptable.

I have fixed it. I have created a gold master CD which I will deliver Wednesday morning to the duplicator along with the artwork (that's another funny oh, ha ha funny story about getting the correct UPC barcode thingy so that our album doesn't end up shelved in Housewares or something. but that's a tear-jerker for another day.)

did I mention I have a headache the size of Poughkeepsie?

Comments

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

oh girl. I feel your pain. And oddly enoug - I DO feel your pain - we spend FIFTY THREE HOURS in the studio. That was the bulk of our expense too. What an annoying process - don't know if I can ever do it again My heart goes out to you and your hardwork.
Your letters are almost impossible to see in the font in your comment box - so if there are massive misspellings - it's because I can't actually see what I just wrote.

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

yeah, too too many hours and hours and damned if we could get the producer/engineer or the mastering guy to pay attention to DETAILS.
they were like, loopy. we had to make do with an old bounce of one of the songs because the guy couldn't LOCATE the pro tools file. I mean. I MEAN HE LOST OUR MUSIC.

but then again: they did it in barter so we have no right to complain. but I would rather have paid them and gotten some more professional help.

you sent me a link for Kindred Spirits, but is that where I can get the CD you're talking about? do they have more than one?

also, I've tried to change the box font size, can you tell me if this helped?

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

I can see it now much better yis! I was BLIND TYPING. That is not necessarily a good thing!
I can send you a cd - I have plenty! Send your addie to my gmail and I'll shoot one out to you. They are fifteen. I'll even sign it if you want. I have lots of tales to tell about that cd. Sadly - it was our only one. The thought of going back into the studio for another cd made me end up quitting the band. Which is too bad because by the time I quit - we were quite polished.
I have a fangirl in my house! It's quite fun!

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

One more thing. You have to be happy with this recording for ALL TIME because you can't go back and fix it - SO - even if you had to do all of it yourself - you made it into something that you can live with. Leaving stuff bad? Never a good idea because you will be reminded of it EVERY TIME you hear it. You should be really proud of youself for this. Did you know? That everytime a musical note is sounded, the world gets a little bit lighter. That's a true fact.

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

you are so right. to have to listen to all those cracks and pops in what I know was a pristine recording would have made me *insane*. this is the fourth full-length album I've done (the other three were with my a cappella group) so I'm familiar with the phenomenon.

of course, there's no such thing as perfection--we don't even come close, nor do we try. but it would be nice if what good there is weren't being obliterated by the very folks meant to help us. :)

everytime a musical note is sounded, the world gets a little bit lighter

I did not know that. You have lightened my heart with the info. :)

I'm sorry to hear you quit because of the idea of recording again, but I totally understand it. it's the most frustrating process in the universe. e.g., I hate how the bleed makes me sound like I'm singing under a blanket sometimes. or how the energy of a recording falls flat in comparison to live performance.

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

ooh - I know what you mean about losing the vivaciousness of live vs the recorded sound. Our cd is ten years old this year and by the end - I didn't even recognize our old sound in what we did. We had really kind of moved into an even better arena of sound.
It was our personalities that broke us up - if I could have kept playing with them and NOT talked to them at all - I would have felt just fine staying in. But there was that pesky talking that just kept making me get madder and madder. And cancelling gigs and showing up later and/or unprepared didn't make me feel any better about continuing the band. How is it that they became LESS professional after fifteen years and not more professional?
I am still, sadly, a bit grumbly about it. Someday I will let that go. For now - I am playing with lots of new folkes which is a different kind of challenge. It's fun and interesting and makes me realize I need to practice more!
I am actually spiritually devoted to the theory that making music helps the world. The vibrations go out, spread a little bit of cheer and calm things down. There's nothing better than looking up at a gig and realizing that someone in the room is transported by what we are doing. I am sure you have found the same thing a time or two.
My goodness I ramble in your LJ don't I? This just makes me realize we wasted alot of good chatting opps at bitchinparty! Darn it!

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

drive-by, because I still have to review the new master for track spacing (my brain hurts) but I know just what you mean about what the hell? show up to rehearsal on time much? and how about actually rehearsing ON YOUR OWN occasionally?

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

Oh girl - don't EVEN go there. The things my bandmates did? [insert hyperventilation here] made me realize just how much I needed therapy after it all stopped. It was out of this world. One of my favorites? Was spending literally HOURS making arrangements, writing them all down and getting to the gig and the harp player would shake her bottle blond hair and say "I lost the peice of paper I wrote everything on (vs writing it on the music itself) and I forgot what I'm supposed to do here"
*stabbity stabbity stab*
But only metaphorically!
*deep calming breaths*