Superbowl Sunday
Sunday, February 8th, 2026 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio28F and cloudy tonight. I slept in until 5PM, without trying... likely due to the rhinovirus.
I'm not a huge sports fan so, my first clue that today must be Superbowl Sunday was finding a good parking spot at Aldi, and being able to move around freely in the store without people crowding every aisle.
Back home, downtown was as quiet and dead as it normally would be at midnight.
A google search of, "when is the superbowl in 2026," gave me, not the date, but the score: Seahawks 6, Patriots 0, in the 2nd quarter.
Okay then!
My shoes and orthotics arrived, and are still in their packages on the bed. I'll get to those later tonight.
Now it's time to get back to work on the mixes.
The shoes were the wrong style and way to big! I'll need to return them this week.
I do have a pair of new shoes bought through work (they paid half the cost), with composite toes, in the car, that I've been reluctant to try and break in. But now that I do have new orthotics, perhaps I should actually give that pair a chance?
Seattle Seahawks won, 29 to 13... for what that's worth.
I'm all clean and shiny, with my clothes in the dryer, and seven minutes to go on that spin...
Okay! Propagation of the new PQ2 presets for drums, cymbals, and bass guitar has been completed for all 12 songs, including Archeology!
The gain balances for all 12 were tweaked, for the rhythm section and the guitars. And I am in the process of exporting those, sans-orchestral mixes to a special folder for reveiw later tonight.
I was able to do all tonight's work with the iLouds at a medium loud setting.
And even at that lower volume level, with the white noise of the space heater, I could hear a distinct difference in the EQ quality of the drums, cymbals, and the bass.
The bass guitar is fuller and deeper now. It's low pass, up to 200Hz allows a little below that threshold to get through, but not enough to conflict with the toms and kick.
I had to pull down the volume on the bass in every mix, quite a bit. But even with it's fader far down, I could hear it very clearly.
The kick and toms sound better, and distinct from one another, and the bass guitar.
The snare, rim, and woodblock are all cleaner and more clear.
But the big win was with the cymbals!
I found myself pulling down the ride, ride bell, hat pedal, and hat tap in every mix, because they were now so clear and distinct.
Meanwhile the splash, crash, and open hat cymbals ring out much more distinctly.
It was the poor audibility of cymbals, and snare, as well as dullness of the bass, on the ruff record, that prompted the first pass of gain staging.
And while that helped, the focused EQ work this weekend really brought the details out a lot more clearly... both in a casual listen over the iLouds with a space heater running, and in the beyerdynamics.
The rhythm section has really come into focus now, compared to the Ruff Record, or anything before it.
The guitars too, are sounding good in their mixes, but I was paying attention tonight to the EQ quality of the guitars in each song, noting that some are spot-on and sound very realistic, while others, like in Clue Phone, and Other Friends, still languish in the uncanny valley.
So, what I'm gonna do is save all the Sakura presets, PQ2s, Fast Dist & Convolver presets, for these 12 guitar experiments, and then, after some careful assessment, apply some of the better schemes to some of the more problematic songs.
But that won't be the immediate focus... it can wait a bit.
Tomorrow will begin spectral analysis, and PQ2 adjustments to the orchestrals, starting I think, with the cello and violin (which is just the cello playing higher notes).
The list of orchestrals is; Cello/violin, horn, trumpet, flute, bassoon, clarinet, xylophone, marimba, cellesta, and piano.
Of them, the piano is probably the only one I'll need to hold off on until the guitars are finalized.
For the rest of them, I should be able to arrive at a PQ2 scheme that can be universal to every mix.
Not sure how long this orchestral step will take, but I managed to knock out the rhythm section in a weekend, So that's hopeful.
Okay, so another weekend has come and gone.
I made a good deal of progress with it.
The shoes were a disappointment.
The rhinovirus situation is not completely cleared up, but I foresee being able to make some progress this week, at night after work.
The Seahawks beat the Patriots. It's warming up this week. And Valentine's Day is on the way!
I'll talk to you next Saturday.
°¦}
