Groundhog Sunday
Sunday, February 4th, 2024 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
32F and clear tonight... and it was warmer and sunny today and yesterday.
I'm all clean & shiny on my Sunday night with the laundry in the washer as I write.
I spent Saturday working more on Gargoyles.
I had hashed out guitars for it last week, and parts for other instruments, but it was a mess, mainly because the guitar was too loud and obnoxious through the whole song.
The guitar for song 1, Archeology had sounded great, and I discovered that I could save those settings in a file on the PC.
I then created a second guitar in Gargoyles and loaded in the presets from Arche to get a nice smooth guitar with a hint of distortion... for most of the song sections.
The obnoxious guitar with tons of chorus and distortion was still fine for the one, most over the top section in the song, which only hits twice, in the main song... and then comes back at the end.
So I copy/pasted most of the obnoxious guitar parts into new patterns for the new guitar, and... presto!.. guitars all fixed.
I then tweaked the drum patterns in different places to make more definite stops in the song, and make it more clear which parts should be quieter, and which louder.
I tweaked the velocities of the different instruments, especially in those quiet parts, to keep them subtle.
And it went on like that until I got to a stopping point around 9PM.
There was no phone call at all last night, though Colleen texted to say she and Sheila would like to talk in the afternoon on Sunday.
No call or text from Tim, and I didn't try to text or call him.
I did finally spend the $100.00 to upgrade FL Studio to Producer edition last night, and attempted to get the interface box working with the dynamic microphone... with mixed results.
I couldnt get FL Studio to see the interface box, but it did work... kind of... with Audacity.
And I realized I was gonna need a pair of headphones that could plug into the box, so I orderd that on Amazon for $30.00... and it came today.
Today I spent a few more hours with Gargoyles because the whole mix was still too loud... so I reset all the channel rack controls for pan and volume and... basically remixed it.
The key ended up being to use the actual FL mixer, because it was being engaged by the guitars for the different distortion effects... and the main volume on that mixer was too high.
At any rate, I finally got Gargoyles under control around 3PM, and exported the mix to a FLAC that was uploaded to SoundCloud.
Around 3:30PM, I got a start on the guitars for song 3, Magic Monday.
Luckily, that's a much less complicated song, so progress went quickly.
Around 4:30, Sheila and Colleen called... and we talked about the foreclosure situation, and just kinda caught up with each other.
It was a good Sunday afternoon phone call that went on for about 90 minutes or so.
After that I made a beer run, then took Yvette for her 2nd walk.
Between 7PM and 9PM, I managed to get all the guitars and other instruments done for Monday.
This song too ended up with two guitars.
Both are pretty subtle, but one has more delay/reverb than the other.
There's also piccolo, clarinet, and little bells, in different places.
This song takes place in the winter... and I think I did a pretty good job keeping it all very clean, subtle, and sounding wintery.
So around 9:15, Monday too was exported to FLAC, and uploaded to SoundCloud.
The portable drive was updated with the latest studio files, which have now been copied to the back room computer, so everythings good and backed up.
And now the first three songs have full guitars and instrumentation!
If you count, Closer To You from last summer... that's four songs!
And this is why I upgraded to Producer Edition, and will be grappling with getting the mike to work next weekend, because it's getting to the point where I'm itching to get some vocals recorded!
There's still six songs left to flesh out, and the next one up, Never Rains is easily as involved as Gargoyles was, so... it's not like I'm just gonna knock this all out in a few more weeks.
But I am learning tricks along the way that are saving me time.
And I will say again... it was a good call to get all the bass lines and drums together for all 10 songs first.
Composing guitar parts is often just a matter of copy/pasting the bass part into a new pattern with a new instrument, and then adding & subtracting notes until it takes shape.
And now that I can use the exact same guitar settings for every song... and can create a second guitar with different characteristics tailored to special sections... it's easy to build up momentum and get shit done.
Gone are the days of sitting and tuning the damn guitar... or changing broken strings.
Gone are the days of composing and practicing a riff or two, and then punching it in on the fly... take after take... until I finally get it right.
I do now think that after this ten song album is done, there will be another to follow it.
I'll have learned enough techniques to get more experimental with a second project.
And I'm still digging up songs I forgot I wrote!
On Friday night, going through the ancient archive drive to look for snow pictures, I not only turned up a bunch of old blogs, but a couple MP3s of songs that don't exist on cassette!... and that I forgot I wrote!
And there's still some from the cassette cache that didn't make the cut for this album, but could work on another one.
And... ya know... I just may write something new one of these days.
I was also happy to find footage of myself recording the Lost Cause album, from 2003!
I had used Patti's video camera to record myself working on a few songs... somehow with the sound from the 8-track piped into the camera.
And I didn't think I'd ever digitized those recordings, but apparently I did!
So that's pretty cool to see!.. and will be useful in making videos for those songs when I get to that album on YouTube.
And I also found photos of the studio as it was when I recorded the final album, Alb-O-Matic in 2008.
Colleen & Sheila are both glad I'm taking on an attorney to deal with the Foreclosure mess, and they've given their reasurances that everything will be okay... and that if it comes down to it... nobody's gonna let me lose this house.
What that exactly means?... we didn't discuss.
But I'd imagine in a worst case scenario where I have to sell the house... perhaps I can just sell it to Colleen, Kevin, & Sheila... for just enough to get BMO out of our lives.
And then I can turn around and buy it back from them!
I dunno!
We didn't discuss it, but... any combination of the three of them could swing a loan like that.
But there are better avenues to follow first.
My consult isn't until Friday, so this week's gonna be about that timeline... and getting out to the branch BMO bank on Lake Street to see if I can talk to Stephany again... or at least find out what her last name was.
Also... get a copy of the original contract.
And... I'm waiting on that payoff quote... and to be served with the summons.
But i'm going to hold off this week on the loss mitigation application until I talk to my attorney, because it may complicate things for me if I assume the debt.
I'm just gonna take it one day at a time, and keep my chin up... knowing now, that things have escalated.
I am safely into February, now, so the, start of month, anxiety is gone now until March.
And, as for the GoFundMe... I'm not gonna bother.
It won't work unless I create a presentation that can go semi-viral.
And I could... maybe?.. do that, if I threw myself into it for another month.
But I'm tired of putting my own creative projects on the back burner to deal with the cursed issues of Mom & Dad!
I created a studio, and am working on an album dammit!
And I'm getting my old albums onto YouTube!
And I will be damned if I put that all on the back burner, like I did with the calendar card project when Dad broke his hip!
Working on those projects is, as I said last week, what keeps me centered.
And as Sheila pointed out this afternoon, it's important to stay calm and clear in a crisis.
So the workdays are for the foreclosure crisis... before work, and while I'm at work, if I can make calls or whatever.
But the late nights after work are for the YouTube lyric videos.
And the weekends are for the studio!
And... I still do have a weirdly positive feeling about February this year, despite everything.
°¦}
