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SOLSTIBREK DAY 05
Sunday, December 28th, 2025 05:24 pm47F out there, purportedly going down to 16F tonight???
Last night's super fog gave way to rain and wind today, with a high of 57! When I was out there running my errands it felt like late March.
But now they're saying light snow tomorrow and Tuesday with heavier snow on Wednesday, so we could potentially have a white New Year's Eve!
At any rate, here we are on the final day of Solstibrek, with only one more, "brek" to go before it's back to the normal grind for a new year.
I slept so well last night, that when I woke up, I didn't know what day or month it was and barely understood *where* I was! I haven't had a deep sleep like that in years. I'm guessing the weather had something to do with it.
Tonight's gonna be about, Spell I'm Under. Maybe... if I can find the right sounds online, I can get it done before bed.
I'm kinda thinking the foley intro to Miss Fortune could be a mash up of all the sounds heard earlier on the album... school bell, thunder, crows, tornado sirens, various birds, train horns, maybe an actual phone ring instead of a ringback... not blended together, but quick clips happening sequentially in a beat.
Hrmmm... is there a way to make samples and piano roll that in FL??? Let me know.
Okay, time to open up FL and work on the music for Spell.
Talk to you later.
It took a while, but the music for Spell is updated and vastly improved!
Quieter guitar in the verses, with no real distorion, just a guy strumming a few chords, with the hat tap instead of the had pedal, and the wood block has more sustain... a hint of rim and snare ring with it.
So the verses are much cleaner, then I really worked on the intrumental ending, which had involved cello, violin, horn, trumpet, and a bit of oboe... playing an 8-measure piece that repeats four times.
The cello melody was really the star of the show, a very emotive, complex line that came to me at work one day... one of the few times in the modern era where a piece of music came to me in a flash and then stuck in my head until I got home.
So NOW, for the first 8 measures, it's just the cello, playing against the rock trio's chorus riffs. Then in the second 8 measures it's joined by the violin.
In the third 8 measures, the horn comes in, playing the vocal melody "all alone in london" backed up in the final measure by the trumpet and then that bit of oboe for the transition into the next round.
This full orchestral grouping then plays again for another 16 measures until the end.
And then as the band/orchestra sounds the final note, we hear a faux music box (vibro and a pluck sound together) play out a little tune, slowing down and getting quieter as it goes, like it's winding down to a stop.
But, as I said yesterday, this song is the one true rock trio jam all the way through... until that cello comes in! And when it does... it really kicks your ass!
It's like, "got in a few good shots and made good my escape. now all i've got to show is old magnetic tape!" Drum fill with cello doing a descending pre-tail before it takes over.
And you feel the drama of it. You've just heard the singer tell you the origin story of the album itself. He's lost everything but his old tapes. He's upset about that, but you know what he'll do with them!
As the orchestra builds, it feels more hopeful... that mix of having lost, but starting over.
Okay, it's just about shave, shower, and launry time, so I'm gonna past the new exported WAV into the vocal file and then... assuming everythings good, the late session will be about looking for sounds, and working the foley!
I'll check in later.
Laundry's in the wash and I'm all clean & shiny. Popped down to the mailroom to grab a package that'd been delivered. A USB extension cord for the dongle for my wireless keyboard & mouse.
Recall that before Hallowenwek, I rearranged the desktop to have the optiplex monitor in front of me, flanked by the Ilouds... but because the optiplex itself still lives in the hutch off to my right, it was too far away for a corded keyboard or mouse to reach it.
The solution was a wireless keyboard & mouse, but over the past week, I'd been bedeviled with very glitchy keyboard and mouse response, which can really drive you up a wall!
The issue was that the dongle was just too far away, and the main signal jamming offender was my watch, which has a constant bluetooth connection to the phone, but the wifi adapter for the optiplex, plugged into the same USB hub as the dongle wasn't helping.
So this new 6.5 foot USB extenstion cable is more than enough to bring the dongle over here in the immediate proximity of the keyboard and mouse... and now... finally I have peace! They both work like they're supposed to work, and I can keep my watch on!
This was another gremlin of Solstibrek, like the corrupted Other Friends file, but I didn't want to mention it until I took care of it.
At any rate, I pasted the updated music for, Spell I'm Under into the AUP3 file and then, I muted it, made a copy, and put light room reverb on the copy track to see how it sounded and it's great!
It's not a replacement for a good final mix and master, but that little touch of room verb with the music does sell the feel of the singer and the rock trio jamming together in their room.
So... in two minutes I put the laundry into the dryer, and then it's over to FreeSound to search for my foley material.
Laundry's been back for a while. Lights are low. Trees lit up and candles going. It's so warm out there I can have the window wide open. Radiator's providing ample heat.
The atmosphere outside is very turbulent. Winds whipping this way and that. A change in the weather is brewing.
I've been on FreeSound for a while now and have gotten what I need. Here's the haul;
- Two firetruck takes, long and clean with sirens and horns close up and traveling far away, both recorded in DC, and so, American.
- Distant cop sirens, long clean take.
- Two closeup takes of cop siren, "blips" or, "yelps" in an urban environment.
- Long clean take of a helicopter, passing near then flying far (it's actually circling, and does so several times).
- Two good takes of traffic in an urban setting with varied motor sounds and honks/beeps.
- A clean track of two motorcycles pulling up, then riding away.
- A good, metal door opening and closing with slight hinge squeak.
- Generic footsteps on hard surface.
- quiet office room sound with clothing swishes, vague murmers, clicks, ticks, etc.
- Office chair creaks and squeaks.
So I've got about three good hours here, before it's time to eat and get to bed.
The vision is for a scene that starts with over-the-top firetrucks, cop sirens, and that helicopter, for the moment just after the end of, Other Friends, right after Alexa says she's ordered aloe for the sick burn.
But then the helicopter becomes a tracking shot, flying away from that, with sirens fading, and going into a more normal urban landscape.
As the helicopter fades, we are left with the urban street traffic, and then footsteps lead us through a door into a studio. The outdoor sounds collapse to mono at the doorway and mute as the door closes.
We now hear the vague sounds of people shuffling and creaking a bit in the studio.
The kick drum counts the song in, and, Spell I'm Under starts.
Not sure if I can get it all done tonight, but I'll get somewhere with it!
Talk to you around 4AM, for the final Solstibrek transmission!
It's late, but we did it!
The intro foley was created exactly as described!
I did a quick outro foley too, for as the music box winds down, of just distant cop sirens, very quiet, as if the music box is doing a little lullubye for the perpetually unsettled downtown.
It's exporting to test FLAC right now, and will then be added to the Ruff Record... and files backed up before bed.
The foley unfolds exactly as planned, with over the top firetruck sirens and cop-car yelp at the start, and a super close helicopter hovering over, like that sick burn is a military level crisis.
But the helicopter flies on... left to right, and the chaos fades out and give way to a city street.
The helicopter fades almost perfectly into a local motor scooter passing by.
And that motor scooter sound gets mitigated by the footstep walk through the door into the studio...
And when the door closes out the street sounds, we hear a fly buzzing around in the very quiet room... before shirt swishes and chair squeaks give way to the kick drum.
So... Super loud helicopter becomes street level motor scooter, becomes indoor fly... in an unbroken chain of sound!
It's brilliant!
Okay! That ends Solstibrek 2025! We got both Other Friends, and Spell I'm Under in the can!
Now i've got two workdays to figure out how to sample and sequence that proposed intro foley for Miss Forturne, which will be an overture/montage of all the sounds heard on the album.
I'll see you on Wednesday, for the start of GREGORIBREK!
Final notes... it got foggy again as I was working and began to snow! As I write, we are getting a fairly serious flurry of snowflakes!
Hopefully, when we next meet, it will be with another few inches on the ground, as the year turns.
°¦}
