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Howdy Folks. Newcastle here we come, this saturday night from 8pm. I think.

So there.

What's that you say? half price on lights at the hire place? Am I tempted to add some lights to our gig?

no, I have come here to pick up a vocal compressor to try and smooth out the low register vocals on Country Radio and South Of The Border, so that they are lifted above the guitars. I will just hire this device and...how much did you say those lights were again?

Ok, so I might have gone slightly mad. Maybe it was reading that bio of Syd Barrett and all those early Floyd gigs.

then again it didn't seem to bother the boys too much.

In between sets, I spotted this adorable little pooch outside int eh cold, waiting for his/her owner. Awwwwwww cuuute.

Rosie says the lights were either awesome or aggravating, depending on how he felt in the moment,  Claudette says it was distracting, I thought it was like being in a tumble drier filled with Christmas tree lights.

I am not sure if we have quite got the hang of using them.

Carl also got a bit keen with the fog machine, so it was a whole effect. I am not sure if we'll do it again quite the same way but it was a fascinating experiment.

Oh yes, the vocal compressor helped. Cheers to Bobby and Pete for some additional production advice.

Also, cheers to Claudette, Suzanne, Steven and all the folks that came and danced last night. Good times. 

There are still blinking lights in front of my eyes now. I can see infinity!!!

It keeps on rolling, just keeps on rollin...i've been listening to Paul Robeson off and on for the last few days, must be something about low frequencies that soothes the ear after a week of mixing.

9 down 4 to go. 

We now have a break of 10 days while Pete does his thing at Splendour and then we'll be pushing on.

In the interim, it's time to make notes on these mixes, and in my case, start searching for any additional sound effects or features that we might want to add.

There's also the album artwork and I guess we could even try the occasional videoclip.

Thank god Theo was at the session yesterday as he managed to pin point the source of concern with Same Old Blues. Pete and Theo zeroed in on what was bugging them in the rhythm and they're the kind of things you fix in Mixing:

- Move the bass 50 milliseconds.

-Adjust the sound of the Hats and Snare drums

- Change the balance between the room mike and the drum mikes

-Change the compression settings

And suddenly the song comes to life? Brilliant. So lets look at Country Radio

-Adjust Mandolins

-Adjust Vocals

- Re-adjust mandolin

-re adjust vocals

-LOOP/INFINITE

-^CTRL-Z

Realise its the drums, adjust them and then...

- readjust mandolin

-readjust vocals

ARGH!!

Another session this afternoon.

2 sessions down, two more to go this week.

We've only got two more sessions before Pete has to go to Splendour In The Grass (lucky devil), will we be finished the mixing by the end of this week? 

It's possible, yes, but then again, no. Probably not.

We're 5 tracks through so far, but we have wisely saved up the problem children for last. Ok, so maybe 'wisely' is  optimistic but incorrect.

We're tweaking, arguing, relistening and re-relistening, swapping vegetarian dishes (we know how to party), listening again, tweaking, arguing, compromising and reading various biographies of musicians that Pete leaves lying around. I am reading up on Syd Barrett, who seemed to have a nervous breakdown after making his album. I think you should get a jump start on such things and go mad before you start making albums, it saves diagnosis time, for example:

Me: I have decided to make an album

Any Rational person: Really? You must be crazy!

Me: Gleep Gleep! Woof!

Where was I? Oh yes. Mixing. With each tweak, the songs are sounding more refined, clearer.

Back in the studio this afternoon, I'll see if I can catch some footage of the discussions :-)