It took me a bit to decide if I liked it or not myself. I was thinking Leonard Cohen conceptually at first, but the end result is more Carl McCoy/Michael Gira/the Sopranos theme. Either way works; I wound up cutting the whole thing that way with some more belting-it-out vocals to maybe accompany a couple choruses + some high harmonies which I actually really liked. I'll make some sense of it once I sort out the rest of the tracks.

I'm now on to the Really Big Fun of comping all the takes of bass. I should really settle on some sort of methodology for tracking. In some cases, I have excessive numbers of takes, in others, I just beat on a section until I'm reasonably certain the last take was cool and then move on. The latter method seems to have worked for vocals so far and seemed to do well for guitars. In some cases, the less structured things, I just recorded riffs over and over and over and over and... to hack up and use later.

Which is what I'm taking a break from now to type this. I'm currently trying to make sense of the bass on Where Monsters Are In Dreams, and realizing I like it as the sort of formless instrumental it is. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/06%20Where%20Monsters%20Are%20In%20Dreams.mp3

Also, I'm rather pleased I saved the synth patches for that. It's all my Alesis, and given the current state of its display, I'd really hate to have to try and reprogram it.

The bass for everything, I wound up using Ken The 's Musicman Stingray, into my FMR RNLA @ 3:1 taking off about 3-4 dB on peaks- mostly the slapping parts- and my ART DMPA with the Raytheon 12au7 in channel 2. It's definitely a different tone than the Mullard 12at7s I have for that- more open, deeper bass, vs. the Mullard's midrange focus. Not bad for a t00b I noinked out of the trash. I still have a Mullard in channel 1 for other things; I used it on some Prophet tracks for Garda stuff the other day.

And for what it's worth, I cut all the bass in standard or drop D; I wound up tuning the E down to B and punching in for anything lower.

It's interesting revisiting some of this material. Some of which I would not have written now- some of the guitar stuff, for one. And some of it is starting to go off in different directions than originally intended. I'm trying to remain fairly faithful to the original intent of the songs, but...

Speaking of , I'm not sure if I like the strings here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/where_monsters_test_4_16.mp3

Very soundtrack-y, again. They sorta happened because I was too lazy to un-case and plug in a guitar whilst working on synthy stuff earlier. We'll see if they stay in some form.

It can work like that, for sure. Totally a matter of where you want it to go. The strings lend a somber/low mood to it for sure, which is an interesting contrast to its initial robotic funkiness. It just seems that maybe those sad robots wanted to dance instead? Robot dancing, however, doesn't necessarily always need to be allowed/encouraged, obviously. You could go either way with it.

I would be curious to see what other ideas you were toying with in place of the strings.

Goddamn, you are such a saucy damn bass player. And that piano, too. Man, I'm still amazed by those piano flourishes you put on my song about snax...

How could I not play on a song about ?

I can't play drums worth shit though.

I'd say as a group we're pretty well-rounded for a bunch of, when it comes down to it, some flavor of heavy rock to metal guitar dorks.

I spent the evening doing vocal whatnots. I finally put some vocals on this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/Australopithicine_vox_test.mp3

Same setup as Wasteland; I have all my settings written down. Sounds like Pod guitars to me- I'm singing over a bounce of the scratch tracks. I am really, really liking the room mic as a 'verb send on the vocals. Same deal as before as well; it's stuffed in the corner across the room and compressed to all hell with the gain on the pre dimed. It will pick up a whisper across the room loud and clear. It needs to be dead silent in the building for it to be worth a damn though- which means late nights or weekends when no one's there, mostly.

I put this and the Banthammer track at the same time into media player to listen, and I am An Inventor followed directly by this has kind of a glorious Bungle-esque gearshift quality to it. They actually fit together weirdly well.

This all by itself is swell though. Guitar tonez are roughish, but the arrangement and vox are coolly cool.

Somehow I actually sang Imaginary Girl after Inventor. Don't ask me how that is physically possible. Though my voice is a bit... Er... Equine, at the moment.

Re: tones, even for the scratch tracks, I do like the 'puter sims way better than the Pod. I would almost almost use them at this point. I've done it for the odd overdub on the Garda stuff. I'm too much of a snob to totally do it though- I have or have access to too much good gear and spaces to record it in, and it's sort of a point of pride to say "fuck you- I can do it!"

This is one of the few times I bust out a pick for the bass. The stoner riff fuzzbass is too much of a mess otherwise. I go there out of necessity.

I'd like to get the majority of the vocals done at least before doing anything with the live drums. Which is about 100% backwards from how any normal person would have done it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/Imaginary_Girl_NLS_test.mp3

So, I'm demo-ing Waves NLS. If you're not familiar, it stands for Non-Linear Summing; basically they modeled 32 channels and... either the busses or master section? out of three spiffy consoles. The channel component assigns a random channel from whichever console you select to the track it's on. I suppose the real test would be to take it off all the tracks and see what happens... Anyhoo, I have Master Tape and NLS (modeling an SSL 4000G) on all the tracks here. I'm fairly convinced it does something beneficial for my purposes.

Acoustics are just the scratch tracks- my Ibanez, direct. I should really get around to restringing the thing and cutting the acoustic parts all nice and proper-like.

Bass is Musicman Stingray DI-ed through my ART (Raytheon 12au7 channel) and FMR RNLA, same as before. I duplicated the track and ran it through SVX (B15 head, SVT 4x10 cab, AKG 414 distant) for the main tone, blended a bit of the DI back in there. I can't quite decide if the "Ultra LO" on the modeled bassmap is worth it or if it muddies things up too much.

Vocals, I'm still sorting through and deciding if they suck or not, but I threw the first verse in there. NTK up close (same pre/comp as the bass), NT5 off on the other side of the room into the ART's other channel. Step on that with L2 (finally have a use for that piece of shit!), send it to one of the Bricasti impulses.

It occurs to me having the piano being rather busy at the end doesn't clutter it up too much, but having the drum machine behind the "live" drums as per the original version does.

I need to bust out the MicroKorg for this one; the original version has a crapton of vocoder, courtesy of, all over it, which... adds something.

Defitely sounds doaply, whatever that plug is doing or notdoing.

Vocals, to my own (dubious, as you well know) personal tastes have some good and some maybeslightlytoomuch. The vocal sound is fucking fantastic though, especially at the front end of the toon. It is lovely, close, and LOUD, in the finest way for the style.

Luvly.

Man, I am jealous of the things you can do with your voice. Sounds really good, mang.

I put the ending section on against the clip I posted back when with the piano and it sounds... I don't know, wider, more spacious. Things go where they're supposed to.

Re: the vocals- as I said prior, I'm still myself trying to decide how much of what I recorded is good vs. suck. And I actually agree on the maybeslightlytoomuch. This song is High Melodrama, for sure, and it's difficult to keep it from going too OTT. (Likewise, I can't mellow out on the chorus either or it sounds way too friendly and lightweight.)

And re: loud, the main vocal track, I think there's like three compressors in series. One on input, two in the box. This is one of those where I had a pretty-shiny vocal in the cue mix and basically worked the mic around the compressor. I don't think I could really pull this off as well without it. 'Cause I'm up real close in parts, like right up on the pop filter, and backing off quite a bit for the louder parts. (Which make me think of Billy Corgan the way I sang them? )

I brought the NTK and and NT5 home to do the acoustics with, and I'll probably give tracking some vocals a shot here at home as well. The living room in the neuhaus is big and long and asymmetrical with ten foot ceilings and all hardwood, and there's an actual decay to the 'verb, not just early reflections. I can't not at least try to track some shit in here!

Oh, and thanks Cam. I'm sorta all over the map vocally, aren't I?

Just a wee bit, sir. I have been making it a habit of collecting different vocal styles over the years (though most are just different kinds of monster noises ), so it is cool to hear someone who's got just a little time on me.

Sounds killer, though the buzz on the first right side guitar riff...

...is going away shortly. I just restrung the acoustic and set up to record my acoustic parts all nice and proper. So far it's just been DI scratch tracks. NT5 at the 12th fret, NTK at the bridge, moved around in the room to where it sounded best. (Which thankfully isn't 20 feet away from the computer or something...)

One of the bridge pins (low E) was cracked and broke when I pulled it, which set me back a good hour and a half in Getting Shit Done Today 'cause I had to, well, go find somewhere that had 'em on hand, which the closest music store to my house did not. It also meant the neighbor kids were home by the time I got back... Thankfully they and their dog seem to be quiet (outside? At a friends house? One can hope.) for now.

Yes, it's a shitty webcam shot from my laptop, but it's the best I can do at the moment. There's quite a lot of room behind the camera; not quite halfway.

NT5 on the table on a tinystand, NTK which is being mostly obscured by the light, and KSM27 hanging off the rack. All into the Focusrite pres. NTK at the bridge, NT5 at the 12th fret. Oh, and I took a DI. Mostly to have the tuner handy, as I generally hate DI'd acoustic, but it might come in handy...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/Imaginary_Girl_Acoustic_Tes.mp3

...Turns out it did for the verse, right-hand side. It's muted for everything else, but it does bring out the harmonics way more than the mics after being seriously stepped on with a compressor. I think it's all Waves 1176/L2 for everything, IIRC. I could check, but I'm lazy. All channel faders at 0. The room tracks are on a separate group so I can slam them to hell and gone at like 20:1. Also, they're HPF'd @ 120hz to get rid of stupid shit like cars driving by. The takes... are not the best, but the sound is there.

Just the acoustics, nothing else:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/Imaginary_Girl_Acoustics_On.mp3

Just the room mic:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/Imaginary_Girl_Room_Only.mp3

I have actually grown to enjoy the oddshits(carpassings, doorslammings, dishwashings) that wind up sneaking their way into acoustic microphonings.

Of course, i do also have a bird here, so i cannot really expect to be able to make "clean" recoardings with microphones anyhow. No amount of EQ ccould hope to obscure a proper birdblast.

It has then become kind of a matter of embracing as broken, the unfixable, i guess.

That looks and sounds like a nice roomyeah. It has a certain big to it.

When it's actually quiet around here, it is real damn quiet. The only real source of noise is the computer as I'm halfway down the block from the main road. The computer's loud enough I've warned three IRL persons who know I have a giant Hackintosh and want (or in one case just built, though he's running Windows 7) a similar rackbeast about all the cooling fans. I don't think much of it- it kinda reminds me of how computers used to sound, and I'm used to other noisy shit from offices, but on its own it's a fair bit noisier than a Mac Pro + power amp for monitors + rackmount PSU for, say, a Soundcraft Ghost or Mackie 8-Bus or the like. (ie. the rigs of the aforementioned peeps.)

Low rumblies from a car going by- where I am, easily removed. HPF and bam! In your situation... I say: fuck it, mic the bird. What sort of bird do you have, anyhoo?

Listening back I'm liking how the room mic turned out. The mic placement is random. I'm out of stands at home so I just hung the thing in the vague general direction of where I was sitting. Granted given it's an acoustic guitar I couldn't really get rid of the room were it total shit, so it's a plus the room itself sounds pretty damn okay.

Yarr, normal casefans are ridiculweak on the noisytimes. They do make audio-happier versions though. Fewer-but-bigger blades, better bearings, lower speeds. They also make some that are quiet that are designed to go into specially constructed rackunits where the fans are shockmounted and the panels have deadening material innem. A little priceyish, but probably the way to go if closer-to-silence is rilly importante. The Sweetwater 'creation station' or (whatever they are called) rackbizzes use them. I have aslo seen the actual cases/fans/PSUs they use available elsewhere separately though.

Also, a lot of the fan noise comes not even from the big case fans, but the ones on thePSU and the video card. They make 'quiet' versions of bofe of those too though.

The bird here, like all of the pets here, was bought years and years ago by my youngest sister. Actually, it was bought by her boyfriend at the time. So of course, it is a Lovebird. How sweet.

I must admit, i kind of like the bird's attitude. The name is a clear misnomer, and he is a proper hateful bastard. What he really really wants, is to bite fingers, shit in his own water dish, and GET OUT OF THE CAGE. If there is a human in view with a hand extended he will try to see if he can fit his beak through the bars and reach the fingers. If the person is further away, he will clasp at the cage door with his face, and lift it up, trying to get out, or at least to demonstrate to any gullible human, what exactly it is that he would like them to do for him. Sometimes, the violence with which he plays the doorgame succeeds in flinging the thing up high enough that it lodges at an awkward angle, open, allowing him press under it and out, to fly around looking manic but confused(he really doesn't fly very often), while the cat looses her shit entirely, the event being something between Catchristmas and Catapocalyse to her tiny fuzzy mind i think..

The sound the bird makes is a sharp violent blast of chirp that is like the equivalent of a smallish cannon made out of glass, erupting twice in rapid succession. If you happen to be in the same room, it actually hurts, and i am not generally bothered, at all, by loudsharpsounds, so it must be rocking a pretty good dB at it. Whenever he feels like it, he will basically just blast this violence every five seconds or so for say half an hour at a time?

I am pretty sure, that in birdspeak, he is talking about fingers. Delicious fingers.

Re: fans- the case is actually cooler than the surrounding air. Not bad for something 4ru in height. It's got what, like nine fans in it or something though. As it stands, though, the fans don't pass signal, last I checked, so replacing them = not worth it. I looked into it when I had money, and if I didn't bother then I'm certainly not about to now. Having walked as far as I can from it and still A) stayed in the house and B) not closed any doors, it was still audible. (Quasi-open floor plan.) So A) it's really quiet in here and B) that is a loud-ass case. But again: used to it/don't care. Relephant, though, to the previously mentioned audionerds who have more money than I do.

Re: the bird- all I can say is , IRL. At least the cat is not as loud as the bird. Maybe it should be, though.

Cat has some Maine Coon innit via genetics, so actually is quite a bit talky and has wound up on numerous recoardings as well. She is also crazy, and when she gets bored, she pulls things off the refrigerator just to watch/hear them smack into the floor. So i have lots of acoustic things and/or voice things that have random background crackings on them, that i know, on playback, to be the plastic letter-shaped magnets that she is testing gravity with, the next room over.

One of my favorite unintended backup accompaniment recoardings though, was the fired-up cardinal that i had for most of one summer, who wanted sooooo badly to brawl with the backwardscardinal that was clearly starting shit with him from inside my kitchen. Lots and lots of recoardings from that time period bear his beak-to-glass aggressive freeform percussion.