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Holigrind SUN 03
Sunday, December 21st, 2025 05:40 pm28F this evening.
I just got back from, gas, beer, building checks, and groceries.
The new hard drive boasted ultra fast transfer speeds and they weren't lying! I backed up the entire project folder in about three minutes! That would've taken 30 to 40 minutes with one of my older drives!
This is good, because it means day to day backups will be a lot easier.
I named the drive, Logos, because it's gonna host the three, "_ology" albums (The Ology Trilogy).
Soon it will be time to get the street car whistles into the mix of, Closer To You. The WAV I have from FreeSound is of a nice, higher pitch, compressed air whistle, doing a variety of long and short honks.
This'll be the perfect touch at the ending of the song, where I'm already simulating a special shaker, and a low, rolling piano line to evolk the feel of rail travel.
For those unaware, the song is about looking at the ruins of a street car terminal building downtown, and imagining how nice it'd be to just jump on a trolley and go to any other town in the metro for pocket change... and about how the love of my life could be hiding in one of those neighboring towns.
"i've been looking around. in this antiquated victorian boom town. window shopping to find, that elusive and exclusive girl of my dreams. but it's gonna take a goddam miracle! cuz i'm the only soul who's down here. and all the ghosts who troll around here, don't really give a fuck if i'm alone. they've already got problems of their own.
down at the terminal building, all of the fanciful guilding has met it's fate. 'the trolly line is a great way to get around!' too bad i'm only seventy-five years late. cuz i don't have a wheel to roll on. or any kind of real control of, how i'm gettin from A to B to see, the lovely destinations surrounding me.
but she could be at the end of a line, on the sign, at the station, that was taken all the time.
[interlude]
but she could be at the end of a line, on the sign, at the station, that was taken all the time.
i wanna get closer to you (repeat several times)
[music rolls on, builds to a deceptive cadence, then starts over... three times, with more orchestral instruments each time, plus shaker, low piano line, and whistles, before finally resolving. busy train station sounds fade in]
but she could be at the end of a line, on the sign, at the station, that was taken all the time.
[song ends on low piano note. station announcer says something over PA in polish (because that's the sound i found)]
After I'm done with, Closer, and have added it to the Ruff Record, I'll be comping backup vocals for, Bed in the Suburbs.
I had two WAVs with trolley whistles, but the longer one that was mixing it up a bit had embedded sounds of grind and bells in it, and thus I could not isolate a single honk and make use of it.
The other file had only a short whistle, but it was clean.
So I used paulstretch to create longer versions of this whistle, which worked like a charm!
The longest version sounds during that deceptive cadence... to great effect, except for it not being in tune, which spoiled the C# or whatever it is the music goes to... flat of the tonic.
But it was close, so I used pitch shift again to bump it up a few percent and it worked beautifully.
All through the ending sequence, this whistle of different lengths sounds on specific off-beats to punctuate the journey. But at the very end, when we resolve to the tonic, it was still missing something.
So I went back to FreeSound and got two sounds, a train's air break, and crossing bells.
The crossing bells fade in as the chorus resolves to the final bridge, and linger a bit.
The air break happens in that span, hitting just when a cymbal hits.
So it's... final long whistle, with train bells fading in under it, then the air brake before the bells fade off... then the final verse ends, and the busy train station fades in, with the, "de-da-do-dun," musical doorbell announcement sounds coming right after the final note of the song, followed by the Polish announcer lady talking very quickly, and at some length about... something.
Then it fades out with just the sounds of people in the station.
END SIDE ONE!
The exported test FLAC of, Closer To You was added to the Ruff Record.
It's a perfect hand off with the dawn birds of, Cold Feet fading out just as the freight train and mourning dove of, Closer, are fading in!
The updated Ruff FLAC is exporting now, but with 7 songs in the AUP3 file, it now takes a good 20 minutes to export!
Thus, I think I will rename this AUP, and it's FLAC to be, "ruff-record-side1" and create a new AUP, and test FLAC for side 2.
Eventually they will be joined together into one continuous file, but I don't have to do that until side 2's done, and I create the "tape-flip" foley sequence, and the "tape-end" foley sequence for after Miss Fortune.
But at any rate, here on the winter solstice, I've completed the pre-mix of side one!.. just before it's time to take my shower and get the laundry going.
Side 2 should go faster, as it's only five songs, to side 1's seven.
Talk to you later tonight, before bed!.. and I'll debrief you on how far I got with the comping of the backup vocals for, Suburbs.
All clean & shiny, and the laundry's been back for a while.
There were only four takes for the backup vocals to Suburbs... if I recall, having been done four different Saturdays... so comping through the verses went fast.
Now all that's left to do is the ending chorus, which repeats for several measures, "my bed in the suburbs. my bed in the, subuurrrbs!.. my bed in the suburbs. in such a beautiful, summerrrr world!.." So that'll be tedious, but I should get it done tonight.
After the backup vocal is comped, I'll have to surgically tighten the timing, by going through and copy pasting each syllable/word to line up exactly with those sung by the main vocal.
That's something I've been doing the past few weeks.
As hard as I tried, while recording the harmonies, i'm never exact, but the surgical timing-tightening really makes a huge difference in the final result!
After that i'll manually compress both the lead, and harmony lines, before stemming them out for their effects conditioning.
That's all stuff that'll drag into tomorrow and Tuesday night.
Suburbs really is the third setpeice of the album, though thankfully not nearly as complicated as, Tuesday... at least not vocally.
With the start I'll have gotten on it tonight, it should be done by Tuesday night.
It's very much worth noting that I recorded the main vocals for Suburbs, on the afternoon of the summer solstice!
So it's quite fitting to have begun the final processing of those and the backing vocals, here on the winter solstice!
After getting, Tuesday Siren, and, Our Cold Feet added to the Ruff Record through 3HWW, the challenge this weekend was to complete side one with, Closer To You.
This involved another foley intro challenge, similar to last weekend's.
Last weekend it was, how to establish the library setting, when libraries are known for their silence? The solution was a period appropriate, motion activated bot in the lobby, announcing that the library was, "on the web."
This weekend it was, how to establish the abandoned downtown setting, when it too would be essentially silent.
The solution was a freight train, hint of a river, a mourning dove, and a can kicked down the sidewalk, to alarm a starling.
Vocal conditioning went fast, but the foley work for the ending continued into today, before it was finished and added to the Ruff Record.
Over the three full weeks of the holigrind, we went from last minute tightening of Rains, to the first experimental EQ presets for Reavis, to that and Rains being added to the Record, along with; Monday, Tuesday, and Closer To You, for a complete, Side One test FLAC of the Ruff Record!
The challenge now is to get side two done by the end of Solstibrek, so that Gregoribrek can be spent properly EQing the Archeology (the song) vocals, and working up the final two foley sequences... for the tape flip, and the tape end!
But the system's been tested and proven to work! Presets... notes... FreeSound... some jumping back and forth between FL and Audacity... backups on the new drive... it's an efficient, well organized, non-destructive system that will allow for a ton of flexibility in January & beyond, when the final mix is on the table!
Okay!.. I'll return on Wednesday, for SOLSTIBREK DAY 1!.. and log daily through that long-awaited five-day Christmas break!
The holigrind is nearly done!
See you on Christmas Eve, when, if all goes to plan, I'll be starting work on, Clue Phone!
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