Want Your Opinion - 4 tracks, 8 parts

[Donna]

Mon Capitan!

"Allows two mono 1/4in. (6.35mm) plugs to be connected to a stereo 1/4in. socket, one to the left channel and one to the right channel. "

Yes - that's what they had at the store, sans the description. The RS employee (not a musician!) didn't know what he was talking about.

Well, I don't feel *overly* stupid.

I'll just buy that thing and cable, too, from the guy who sold me one green pick!

Edited March 20, 2006 by Donna

[john]

Mon Capitan!

"Allows two mono 1/4in. (6.35mm) plugs to be connected to a stereo 1/4in. socket, one to the left channel and one to the right channel. "

Yes - that's what they had at the store, sans the description. The RS employee (not a musician!) didn't know what he was talking about.

Well, I don't feel *overly* stupid.

I'll just buy that thing and cable, too, from the guy who sold me one green pick!

They come indifferent sizes: mini jack to 1/4" jack, stereo to stereo, stereo to mono, mono to mono, phono to jack, jack to phono. You can also get gold connector versions. They're a bit more robust than the cable solution, and cheaper as it allows you to re-use the actual leads elsewhere rather than have a dedicated set of leads.

[Donna]

Watcha mean? (re: leads - also is it pronounced 'leeds' or 'leds'?)

John will it make a difference using mono cables to stereo jack splitter?

hey man thanks.

edit: or do ya mean the actual gold connector tip comes off??? It's like learning to knit over the phone ain't it?

Edited March 21, 2006 by Donna

[john]

Watcha mean? (re: leads - also is it pronounced 'leeds' or 'leds'?)

cables - leads pronounced leeds

John will it make a difference using mono cables to stereo jack splitter?

No as the indiviual signals are effectively mono if you use a stereo plug to 2 x mono plug convertor as the connector.

hey man thanks.

edit: or do ya mean the actual gold connector tip comes off??? It's like learning to knit over the phone ain't it?

nah...

[Donna]

woo-hoo!

Cheers and beers!

[Prometheus]

Prometheus, right on time! Boy, it's good to see you and with just the answer I needed (to a question I hadn't yet asked) about rolling the lows and all as regards separation for a many parts mix.

Just to be sure: to roll off means to "up" the htz tier, NOT the gain?

John: Scared is my middle name right now Keep saying "don't be"...

Hey Prometheus, how about songplanet for your stuff?

Here goes...

http://www.songplanet.com/artists/bands/2297/

[Donna]

Alright, wish me luck, as I'm soon going to go for a few practice runs of stages 1 and 2 as John mapped out on page one...

[Prometheus]

Alright, wish me luck, as I'm soon going to go for a few practice runs of stages 1 and 2 as John mapped out on page one...

Go For It Donna...

[Donna]

Roger that!

I did two takes...but the first was wrong (drums on 1 & 2, keys on 3 & 4). The second was correct (drums/keys both on 1 & 2). I did a prelim mix w/ a nice reverb, so that the snare echoed a bit. Liking that.

As I work with it, next run will be to hone in on the separate eq's. Though I cut the lows and boosted highs, the keys came out a bit low for my liking (and the drums bright - which is fine 'cept for lack of kick, so that won't do). But it's def. worth pursuing, all 8 parts!

When first studying John's little stage 2 diagram, I's counting on doing keyboard bass. But now that I have a real bass, another player will be needed to record for the bounce to work.

The Franknenbass guy immediately came to mind, I heard him play the Ibanez recently. We have Loo's great parts on an old tape, so if Matteo's willing to learn them...it's a shame he couldn't play bothh bass and guitar, but we need me too for the bounce to work.

mygosh, I *think* that boy also plays keys. This could be a great help to the song if he does. The keys will have to totally be redone for the real take anyway.

[Donna]

Prometheus, if you can believe it, I had the 4 yr old man the desk for drum levels!

She was the only one on hand when I was ready to roll.

I explained to her the mic, signal source (drums) and meters. "Just tell me if there's too much red. It should be like black-black-black-RED, black-black-RED, black-black-back RED-RED. What we don't want is RED_RED_RED_RED_RED_ all the time!"

I was able to lean forward while playing so as to view meter for a second to check her answers, and she was fairly accurate. I told her to plug her fingers in her ears if it got too loud and to keep her eye on the meter.

Based on her answers and my quick view, I set the trim and it's not bad.

Edited June 2, 2006 by Donna

[Prometheus]

Prometheus, if you can believe it, I had the 4 yr old man the desk for drum levels!

She was the only one on hand when I was ready to roll.

I explained to her the mic, signal source (drums) and meters. "Just tell me if there's too much red. It should be like black-black-black-RED, black-black-RED, black-black-back RED-RED. What we don't want is RED_RED_RED_RED_RED_ all the time!"

I was able to lean forward while playing so as to view meter for a second to check her answers, and she was fairly accurate. I told her to plug her fingers in her ears if it got too loud and to keep her eye on the meter.

Based on her answers and my quick view, I set the trim and it's not bad.

Sounds like there's another mixing engineer in the making...

[Donna]

OK tonight I said I'm doing this whole song, I just have to hear where it's at, the good and the bad.

Frankenbass young man is nowehere to be found these days, so I added a keyboard bass to the...rough draft (shall we say) sequenced part. Did that and drums (after ten PM) and was finishing vocals after midnight. I did shut the windows for the last bit. Sometimes you just have to risk waking the whole place up.

It will work. I just need to get a guitarist over here and come up with better keyboard parts for the verses. It works best when I play it just like I think it should go. It's ending up that I'm copping less and less of Loo's lines.

Did two mixes of the 9 parts. The mixing/equing along as I go is the biggest bear. I'm certain it can be done, just wish I wasn't the slob who has to do it. The separation is an issue, but thanks to you guys giving me many maps on this recodring section of Songstuff, it's really all here how to go about acheiving it.

I'm in a good spot with it, such a big project for me.

Made also a new mix of Stage 1 (stereo drums and keys) which is my map of vision as it turned out really good.

Cheers, splitter jacks and beers!

And - three vocals (swoon), I sang back up while playing (lol) guitar. Did you know in a pinch you can attach a mic to a keyboard stand with a sturdy rubber binder? That was the condenser mic. It's not even a money issue! Literally haven't had time to pick up a mic stand.

Edited June 22, 2006 by Donna

[Donna]

Recalled today that I know one guitar player who, if I ask her "will you do it this way", WILL, and she'll do it PERFECTLY. Haven't spoken (cause of life) in ten years...different city she lives in. Terri is...much more of a perfectionist than I am.

I hope she'd be willing....

Sorry if I'm blogging too much y'all

[Steve]

We're all enthralled with your progress. I'm hoping to pick up a few tips along the way! PLease keep us informed.

[Guest voclizr]

Prometheus, if you can believe it, I had the 4 yr old man the desk for drum levels!

She was the only one on hand when I was ready to roll.

I explained to her the mic, signal source (drums) and meters. "Just tell me if there's too much red. It should be like black-black-black-RED, black-black-RED, black-black-back RED-RED. What we don't want is RED_RED_RED_RED_RED_ all the time!"

I was able to lean forward while playing so as to view meter for a second to check her answers, and she was fairly accurate. I told her to plug her fingers in her ears if it got too loud and to keep her eye on the meter.

Based on her answers and my quick view, I set the trim and it's not bad.

Hey Donna;

Just don't forget to give her engineering credit on the album cover, and don't forget Dylan's photography!

I hope you're planning on posting this endeavor when it's finished. Can't wait to hear it!

John B.

[Donna]

Steve...it's got to be said that under that insane smarta** humor is a sweet person. Sometimes I realize, 'they've only heard one song but a thousand albums of chit chat'.

JB: are you kidding? No, you're being respectful and no-pressure, gotta love that. If I get it done, that means it's respectable and posting it is a main reason to get it done...Actually, I do so want to get this little one's voice talking on a recording - then she will be in the credits

I was spoiled rotten with Loo doing the instrumentation AND mixing AND engineering. It's like a lost-my-limbs kind of thing. He's basically irreplaceable so I'm coming to terms with that.

He's gone into infant exile as I'm coming out of it. I actually scored his bass part and retaught myself (for 56 measures) how to read bass clef....did you know a hard cigarette pack works as a ruler when drawing bar lines on the staff paper?

I fight all this pre-lim work, it's very hard to get myself to do the scoring, cause I'm out of shape. But that's a key to this whole thing, as is setting the eq right in the first place.

[Guest voclizr]

D;

I just love how you got her to do that (signal with fingers in her ears. Love it!). The best part about it is it worked!

John B.

[Prometheus]

I fight all this pre-lim work, it's very hard to get myself to do the scoring, cause I'm out of shape. But that's a key to this whole thing, as is setting the eq right in the first place.

Moi Aussi Donna... I haven't read or wrote a score since I was at college...

[Donna]

Appeciate you being in the know then.

But it can be picked up anew.

[Prometheus]

Appeciate you being in the know then.

But it can be picked up anew.

Yeah, I believe so... It's still burned into my brain because of a certain project I did at college where I was the member of the group allocated the task of writing out the scores for a self teaching book... None of us could get Sibelius (a musical scoring program) to work for us, so I invented a weird system of using a combination of stolen and self created templates to put down score by hand at lighting speed using MGI Photosuite, which was a reasonably advanced image manipulation program at the time...

It's hard to explain exactly what I did, but it was slow going at first, but the speed curve got faster and faster because by the end I was able to lift out whole phrases from previous pages as the exercises were repetative but built on the ones in the previous books, of which we had beginner level, intermediate and advanced...

It was tedious and mind numbing, but rewarding as well because it challenged me to think outside the box, and put me under pressure to work to a tight schedule. Failure was simply not an option or I would have been letting down another four people besides myself...