Today has been a thoroughly odd day. Got in a bad and down mood thinking about stuff (too weird to go into here) so I went for a ride, bust out a quick 15 miles to channel the anger. Got back home, got pissed at how fucking messy my flat is, tidied it to converge at unreasonable volume. Then my housemate comes home and thanks me for the cleaning and gives me some ribs he picked up from the chinese place across the way, mentions something which would normally be trivial and now I'm in a good mood. Fucked up times in my head.

Sometimes, simply taking control by force, of a situation, is all it takes to embetter ones brainfevers.

I don't know what kind of brainfevers you have had, but for myself, i have found physical exertion, and then reorganization of my physical spaces, to be pretty consistently effective in righting my own brainship enough to continue sailing about.

...so I show up at ze big studio this evening, tracks in hand, and take a seat in the lounge. 6:00 rolls around; I text my bassist to tell him I'm already there. He responds "we rescheduled. Some time next week, don't have a date yet". Sigh.

Yeah it usually works for me. I'm not really what you would call an emotional person for the large part. I just sail about in a sea of meh, never feeling up or down despite being somewhat of a pessimist. I certainly don't ever lose my shit and wig out at people although sometimes I wish I did/could I suppose it stems from not being an impulsive person.

Our rat sure does poop a lot.

Am I the only one that air drums the intro to Wicked Garden?

Still sober.

Things that I am observing from my self-imposed dry week:

1. Good goddamn. My chest/nasal cavity/wherethephlegm is hiding is clearing out like fuckall. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed the sound of my own singing voice so much.
2. It seems the only reason I eat is because I am always high. I ate practically nothing yesterday and am not very hungry right now, which is fucked because I didn't have breakfast.
3. The first day was the worst, and things are getting easier.

I found I could get very emotional when I stopped smoking a few days.

Eating was never a thang, but then I am quite the piggie.

That's how I was the first day. Definitely lots of screaming "FUCK" randomly and punching walls (which is always a bad idea in my house, plaster walls cut your shit up). I have just been trying to keep myself occupied. Hanging out with people who don't smoke and shit. But last night, my buddies toked in front of me and I kicked it with them for a couple hours before I left, it wasn't as painful as I expected. I think the reason I was able to do this so much easier than before was because it was MY idea.

When I stop smoking, I turn into regular person.

Weird shit.

I haven't smoked for a while and I feel much better for it. Turns out I actually enjoy being sober, I seem to talk more

Still sober.

Some jamz from today:

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/supe ... jam-sesh-1

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/supe ... jam-sesh-2

It is good to make sure your mics are not clipping before you record.

It helps to check.

The other one is pretty useless/meh to me. But there's some charm in this reckless/sloppy jam. It is two riffs. It is stupid. But it is awesome..?

Pretty sure I am going to directly copy everything going on here and record it without the shiteness. Even the "CHORUS, HALF TIME!" bit, which actually may be the finest part.

Funny thing is, I totally did before the first recording..? But that was without the amp, so I wonder if the amp just sent the overhead over the top.

Just judging from that statement, that would be my guess?

For what it's worth, you can back your levels way, way down going into the 'puter and it's totally cool. Modern digital stuff has enormous amounts of headroom- this is important when you start adding more tracks and effects, especially compression and EQ- and no appreciable noise floor, so take advantage of it. Good gain staging- not overdriving the various stuff in the chain by slamming it with super-hot levels from the stuff before it- is good for fidelity. (Now if you want to blast stuff as an effect, that's a wholly different (and awesome) animal. Lately I've been aiming to keep the peaks while tracking around -12; I've heard of guys going to -18 or -20. That's peak level going in. And I've been starting off mixes with all the channel faders at -18. That's a lot of room before things even think about wanting to clip. Stuff can build up in a hurry, and the more tracks, the worse it gets.

I'm looking around and I'm curious what I can try and overdrive just for the sake of trying to overdrive it to see what it'll sound like. I'm thinking "direct box" and "tuner" just because I've managed pretty much everything else with an input. If I can overdrive a tuner that would be badass.

Slam it with Metalzone(s). Plural.

I have made it over the hump, Day 4.