Big feet take small steps - production, postproduction, sc10 and sc11
When opportunity presents itself, when the gap between the whirling blades opens up, we hold on to our hats and take a leap of faith.
Of course there are no whirling blades exactly. In fact, overall, that was a pretty awful set of mixed metaphors. Sorry about that.
Maybe that's just how it feels.
Dr Rock asked me about it the other week, I replied the God Loves The Fool Who Does The Scheduling.
Thank you Mr T.
On the plus side, there's so much to do that we can shift things around to suit.
In my off the blog comments, we talk about the nature and environment of being involved with Music in the early 21st Century.
Here, we focus on our actions. A good way to go.
SC10
Needs art.
Has a working title. Safe Harbour.
Needs thought - we're approaching this in the same manner as EFLH.
I have 5 versions of Brave with your heart, all of which I'd like to release. I'm thinking of naming them Part 1-5.
It's the digital age, the playlist age.
Our guess is most access will be playlists. CD sales and Downloads are fading away, to be replaced by permanent streaming solutions.
Also: performance. Multimedia.
Media type and technology influence the recording process ; singles, vinyl, the cd, each set a boundary.
In the digital age the boundaries are your creativity and your budget to fund it :-)
At present rate, we enjoy cranking out about an album a year.
In the 20th Century that was considered a no no.
I digress.
Returning to the simple, joyful mundane house keeping of finishing work, there are 13 tracks assembled for SC10.
It's pretty much mixing time, listening time, thinking time.
Any last over dubs? Any tweaks?
SC10 is comprised of the tracks of the 5D project + Beyond 5D. As so much of it was location recording, mixing is simplified - not removed - there's still some listening and frequency tweaking to do.
This weeks proposed tracking session will now be shifted to housekeeping, reviews and over dubs.
SC11
Art: in progress
Working title: Rogue State
1 track has already been released as a single (pirouette) , 10 others tracked, 7 to desk mix, 3 in need of vocals and overdubs, 2 more songs to be tracked.
At this weeks session I'll try adding vocals to two tracks that are already down. Yeah the guys are moving so fast the lyrics and melody are playing catch up, but that's ok.
The recording process for these two albums is another evolution.
I'm starting to see music as collections,. What is the 'album?'
I liked that quote about calling them 'records' is better because it's a 'record' of where you were at, at the time.
I'm also seeing these two collections of work as inter-related.
Production Process, Time and Concept are the defining characteristics.
SC10 and SC11 have had 2 different processes:
SC10 was all about real time, on location (5d) and then Variation on Theme (Beyond 5D).
SC11 was short bursts of tracking and recording (3-4 songs at a time), then slow, incremental mixes and fixes over time.
Each process produces a different sound and style.
The overlap is time and concept. Pirouette is on both albums, in acoustic and then electric. Pirouette as an electric song, as envisaged by Brother Bill, showed us the way forward. In the same way as Better Off Without You led to Defiance.
On SC10 you can hear all the environmental sounds.
On SC11, it's all about the local influences, the local identities.
The Local Influence project continues and will continue as we finish these two albums. Watch for invites.
With some luck, we'll track the last two songs in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, we're still working on the ideas within the songs and what we find within the sounds we record.
Big feet, small steps, gets you there with a smile.
