FEBRUARY BEGINS
Sunday, February 1st, 2026 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio25F and breezy out there today, going down to 20F overnight.
This weekend really got away from me!
After I last wrote yesterday, I got the drums for Miss Fortune balanced, but then I broke off to prep for the mid-winter observation.
I did dishes, vacuumed, and watered the plant, then shined up my silver candlestick holder before use in the observation ceremony.
After that I got a start on gain staging the bass guitar, but when 7:30 rolled around, I cracked a beer, and did my observation ceremony, with a few candles, reflecting on how this moment, when January turns to February (marked by Groundhog Day) starts the second half of winter... which is very often the six/seven weeks where the entire year's character will begin to take shape.
Last year, it was in that seven week period that I pushed for and failed to get into a 1BR apartment, and then scheculed the orientation with Elgym studios that would lead to the summer of vocals there, in studio C.
In the same period, I got Chicago Title to cough up the final 5K from the house sale... part of which funded the laptop and interface box necessary to do those remote vocal sessions at Elgym.
And you can say, well, that only shaped your summer! But those vocal sessions lasted through September, by which point I was champing at the bit to start mixing, and so scheduled the week of PTO in October that would kick off the Great Wekbrek, that saw me working on the album 7 days a week until after New Year!
It was after 9PM when I finally got back to Miss Fortune, struggling with the bass balance, and slowly figuring out that it was a case of bass drum kicks combining with certain bass notes to spike the meters, even thought he kicks by themselves had been fine.
This was due to a sloppy velocity issue in the drum patterns, where the kick on beat 2 was abnormally high, and this got repeated thorugh several patterns.
But around 10PM Tim called, and he had a lot on his mind! We talked... or rather I listened, for about three hours.
He always has trouble making ends meet in January and February, as they are the off season for his pool maintenance gig. But now he's got some master plan to start and above ground pool rental service that, with as many beers as he'd drunk, was certain to make him a millionaire in about five years!
To his credit, it does sound like a workable business plan, but he'd need a loan to get started and he wouldn't turn much profit for the first couple years.
Finally, in a late night session, I got the bass and drums for Miss Fortune under control! But then it was time for bed.
I slept in today until about 3PM, but then, after the coffee was made, it was time to pay the bills.
A quick check revealed that the balance in checking was roughly equal to the average total for all monthly bills!.. meaning I *could* pay all the bills today, but if I did... I'd have zero dollars until the 10th!
This is the first month since I moved here, where I was not able to pay everything on the 1st.
So I paid rent, car insurance, and the car payment. The phone/wifi isn't due until the 27th so... it can wait until the 10th.
The rest of the bills are all credit cards, none of which are ever due on the 1st, so they will all wait until the 10th.
Why the lack of funds? Well, for a long time after the move I had an extra padding of cash from the house sale, and that took a long time to dissipate. I also had the ability to offload some weekly expenses to credit cards, until they all got too close to their limits.
So it's only been over the past three or four months that I've truly been living off just the paychecks. And I do think it's enough to get by on, but... when the paydays get out of synch with the 1st of the month?... we get today's situation.
As I said, most things are not truly due on the 1st. I've just been in the habit of paying everything on the 1st, no matter when it's due.
What I paid today; Rent, car insurance, car payment, is what was due today, and that's left me more than enough to get to the 10th. What I'll pay on the 10th will leave me enough to get to the next payday.
But things'll realign in March, with a payday on the 3rd... within the grace period of things due on the 1st. And then two more paydays, on the 17th, and 31st.
I mentioned how things that pop up in the 2nd half of winter tend to characterize the rest of the year, and this is certainly one of those things! 2026 will see me paying closer attention to my spending, and delaying the credit card payments when necessary.
After paying the bills, I calculated that I can spend up to 117.00 per day, through the 9th.
I then went out to get gas, beer & smokes, and groceries... spending 134.90! But, that's fine, because tomorrow I may spend only, say 20.00.
But the cosmic alignments were such that today, I was out of paper towels, toilet paper, and facial tissue... which is a challenging alignment for a Sunday where I also needed beer, because you're talking about ALL the bulkiest items at once!
This is thanks to the fact that no store sells either paper towels or toilet paper in anything less than bulk packs the size of my torso!
So I had to park in the loading zone, here at home... and of course there was no space in the loading zone!.. so I parked across the street in the Dunham building's loading zone, and, with hazzards flashing, had to make two trips up to 11, to get everything in!
And of course, the freight elevator decided to fault-out and become unresponsive on the second trip, so I had to awkwardly fumble my way into the lobby with a heavy backpack, and two unweildy packages of rolled paper, each the size of my torso, and take the regular elevator up.
Whew! So... here it is now 7PM, as I write!
This transitional weekend demanded a seasonal ritual, some fancy financial footwork, and a ridiculous restock of paper products, but now February can finally get underway!
I've got two hours here, before it's shower/laundry time, so... finally I can return to Miss Fortune!
I'll talk to you later tonight.
I'm all clean & shiny, and the laundry WOULD be in the dryer right now, but when I went down there to get it out of the washer, I sadly found that all the dryers were in use!
This is highly irregular, as... since my work hours changed, my laundry routine is now two hours later than it used to be... meaning I should never be grappling with drier denial!
But apparently if February 1st falls on a Sunday, right at the end of a brutal cold snap, AND it's the night of the full moon... it triggers a socio-psychological rogue wave of laundry to be done by the masses?
..Tying up washers and dryers in laundry rooms across the nation, hours longer than normal... all overstuffed with bedding and hoodies, forgotten old garments from the bottoms of drawers, window dressings, and sundry mittens... all still wet after one spin!.. and so they must be spun again!
A subconscious appeal to the wheel of fortune, at this mid-winter moment when the year's very character is on the line.
Whatever the case, Miss Fortune's now exporting to WAV!
This was a tough song to gain stage! It's particular groove has things all hitting together on various beats, such that the cumulative effect is to produce spikes, even when each individual track is well within the levels.
So it was a kind of triage, deciding, who gets the velocity clip, for *this* individual spike? Piano? Rhythm section? Guitar?
Kind of a manual ducking, assigned fairly, according to who, in what measure, needs to be heard more, in what beat.
At any rate, the first pass for gain staging the 12 songs is done!.. and not a moment too soon, because now that it's up above 20F, the radiator's back to going cold for hours long spells... meaning it's either run the space heater, with it's white noise, or low-level monitor the music, but you can't do both!
Okay, the laundy's in the dryer.
I'm taking the rest of the night off!
2nd passes start tomorrow. I do think they'll go quickly this week.
I'm gonna shoot for and average of three songs per worknight, meaning I'd like to have the 2nd passes done by the end of Thursday night.
With 3 hours per worknight, thats an average of one hour per song, which I think is doable.
The early songs will take longer, but the later songs will be 30 minutes max, so it'll all balance out.
The goal is to be taking the tutorial for the spectral analyzer on Friday night, with next weekend being the first true dive into that new phase of surgical, parametric EQ work.
But the parametric EQ settings are savable, and... I would assume, will be universal. Meaning once I nail the EQ for each drum and the bass... that should remain constant for all 12 songs... as it should for all the other instruments save the guitar, which does have different character in each song (and occasionally 2 different guitars in the same song).
EQ is also something that can be reasonably done with headphones on week nights... as it's mostly cold logic, and not judgement... but then checked in the loudspeakers on weekends to be certain.
Thus, the first week of FEB will be the 2nd pass, and then I predict the middle two weeks of FEB will be the EQ, with compression beginning in the final week of FEB, and going on into March.
Again, once compression settings are arrived at for different drums, cymbals, bass, and orchestrals, they should be universal.
But it could take some experimentation to find those universal presets, so we'll be conservative and predict all of March to be about the compression.
That would leave April for dialing in the vocals and sound effects.
Thus, a mastering in early May seems to be where I'm heading.
But we'll see. Maybe I'll get lucky and things will go faster than I expect.
Okay, that's it for this weekend!
Tomorrow, Groundhog Day, is predicted to be 28F and overcast... and thus, no shadow to frighten the groundhog back into his hole!
Let's hope the lore holds true, and we're getting a mild 2nd half of winter!
Enjoy the moonlight, and I'll see you Saturday.
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